Rewind
by Karkadinn
Summary: Charmcaster comes up with a plan to beat the Tennysons once and for all. But as her spiderweb is woven ever larger with each new detail accounted for, she will be caught in it herself before it's all said and done.
1. Chapter 1

Rewind

**This story takes place before 'Goodbye and Good Riddance,' the back to school episode. Summer vacation hasn't quite ended yet. Other than that, all canon applies.**

Chapter 1

A dozen artifacts from five separate extinct cultures crumbled to dust, and Charmcaster wiped her hand over the remains dismissively, partially as a satisfying acknowledgement of triumph, partially to muss up the stuff so it wouldn't look too obviously like the leftovers of arcane work. Chances are no one would ever find it here in this random little grove, but you couldn't be too careful.

All that remained of days of exhausting rituals and spells was a humble, ordinary-looking casette tape of a Winnie the Pooh adventure. No one would ever expect such a sad little thing (she hadn't seen anyone _use_ a casette in at least three years!) to be a powerful tool of magic, like the more traditional wand or staff. And that was exactly the point. Being a deceitful person by nature, Charmcaster didn't think twice before abandoning tradition and dignity for camouflage. She could take it with her, keep it on her person, and no one would think any different of her for it. And yet it gave her the power to twist time in ways that would have made her gullible uncle drool with envy.

Well, that was the easy part.

The hard part was a single, much simpler spell. She knew she could cast it fine. But she couldn't fake it, and it would not be fun for her. Still, camouflage was everything. Keep up the mask, keep up the lie, make yourself _believe_ in it, that was the trick. No matter what it cost, no matter what it took. Till you had what you wanted.

Charmcaster wanted all three Tennysons out of her way forever, her spellbook back, and the Omnitrix on her wrist.

And she was going to get _all_ of it.

Taking a deep breath, she steeled herself before chanting the requisite words. A shudder ran through her body, and she had to clench her jaw to avoid puking from the sudden wave of nausea. It went away, but only briefly, pulsing like a heartbeat. She broke out into a sweat, but felt uncomfortably cold, and her vision blurred.

Great.

Now, she would just run over to the Tennysons and begin her little act. Once she was sure they bought it, the games would begin in earnest. She'd be able to learn whatever she wanted of them, do whatever she wanted to them. It didn't even matter if they caught on... after all, this time, she had insurance.

Sliding the precious audio tape into a pouch at her waist, she stumbled painfully to her feet, and forced herself to start walking briskly. The sooner she got to them, the better she'd feel. They'd believe her story, the good guys were always so easy to fool. And who would be believe she'd curse _herself_, anyway? Heh.

When she came across the cute little family of heroes, they were having lunch at a McDonald's. Weighing different courses of action in her mind, she decided on the dramatic approach. She ran up to them limpingly, gasping in a way that was only half faked, clutched the grandfather's shirt with mock-earnest desperation, and begged for help in a trembling, whispery voice. And then pretended to black out. Except, halfway through pretending, she fainted for real. Being good at dangerous magic wasn't necessarily an advantage when you targeted _yourself_ with a curse.

--

"I have a quote just for this occasion," Gwen said darkly as she watched her relatives carry Charmcaster into their van, holding up her portable recorder.

"_My_ _name_ _is_ _Inigo_ _Montoya._ _You_ _killed_ _my_ _father._ _Prepare_ _to_ _die._"

Ben and Grampa looked at her blankly.

Muttering in irritation, she fastforwarded until she got to the right soundclip.

"_It's_ _a_ _trap!_" Admiral Ackbar's voice declared from the recorder.

"There. Come on, Charmcaster just walks up to us, asks for help, and faints, and we're supposed to be nice to her instead of putting her back in jail where she belongs? I mean, who _faints_ these days, anyway?!"

"Wussy chicks, duh?" Ben said immediately, which merited the obligatory shoulder punch.

"It does seem pretty suspicious," Grampa agreed, "but she doesn't look very good. Let's keep an eye on her for a little bit before we do anything drastic. Maybe she'll be able to explain everything when she wakes up."

Gwen glared at her archenemy's sweaty, unconscious body with disgust. Charmcaster was faking, it was _so_ obvious, why couldn't they get that? They were just falling into the jerk's trap by being so, so hero-y!

A flicker of eyelids and a hint of the rolling eyes beneath, and Gwen treated it with all the danger given to a snake seen coiling underneath a rock. "There! I saw her eyes move! She's just pretending to be fainted!"

Grampa bent down and opened one of Charmcaster's eyelids, peering close.

"Involuntary eye movements. She's dreaming, probably."

"Well, I hope she's having a bad one," Gwen grumbled.

After about an hour of watching Charmcaster toss and turn and moan incoherently, Gwen _almost_ felt guilty. The crook looked genuinely sick, or something. But even sick, why would she come to _them_? Unless she'd been delirious. Maybe that was it. Her temperature seemed fine, though, on feeling it. It was weird.

Still, there were only a few weeks left of summer vacation, and she, for one, didn't want to spend them looking after a villain with the flu. Or whatever. They were heroes, not babysitters!

An hour after that, watching Charmcaster shakily drink tea from a dingy mug and listening to the villain's explanation, Gwen managed an equilibrium between guilt, resentment, and suspicion that managed to solidify into a nice, rational dealing-with-it attitude.

"Uncle wants to get rid of you three. But he doesn't want to take the risk himself anymore... he's getting old, and tired. So he put a curse on me, to make me do it for him." The bitterness _looked_ real enough. "The further away I am from you guys, the sicker I get. It's gonna take me a while to recover even though I went to you as soon as I realized what was happening. If I keep away, I get sick... if I keep away for a long time, maybe even die." Charmcaster swallowed hard, eyes glimmering with what might have been unshed tears. "He's forcing me to stick close, or _else_. Look, I know you guys don't have any reason to like or trust me. And I don't have any reason to like or trust you. But this is too much. I didn't want it to go this far. Right now the only surefire way I know to take the curse off is to kill you guys... and you know what, I don't wanna, so sue me."

"Not like you've ever had problems trying to squish us with your magic tricks," Ben pointed out grumblingly. Gwen was glad he did it so she didn't have to.

"I can't _use_ my magic with this curse on me!" Charmcaster snapped, then hid her face in her hands. "God... I can't _deal_ with this. I'm a witch and a bitch and real good at being both, but if I offed you while under this curse it'd have to be the... old-fashioned way. Like some psycho axe murderer or cult poisoner or something. I'm not gonna stoop to that crap. I just... I _can't_."

"It seems to me that this could all be sorted out if we could have a little 'chat' with your uncle," Grampa suggested.

"I don't know where he is."

"Suuuure you don't," Gwen said just loud enough to be heard, planting her face in the palm of a hand and staring out a window. None of this felt right. Why couldn't the bad guys just stick to nice, simple bank robberies? Cloak and dagger made her itchy.

"I _don't_," Charmcaster insisted stubbornly. And then, to Gwen's mild amazement and total scorn, started to cry.

"I am so out of here," Gwen announced, and with that, went outside for a stereotypical breath of air.

Ben, with the same instincts as an annoyingly attentive-hungry puppy, followed her.

"So you think she's full of it?" he asked her after they'd gotten a few yards off, shuffling their shoes in the pebbly pavement of the McDonald's parking lot.

She kicked a bunch of grit and pebbles into a small, short spray. "What else _could_ she be? This has setup all over it."

Ben leaned up against her back and nudged her. She didn't look, but _knew_ he was grinning. "Maybe you're just scared she'll take her book back and you'll get stuck being boring normal Gwen again."

"_So_ not an issue." And it _hadn't_ been, because she hadn't _thought_ of it, until just _now_ when her dweeb cousin had to bring it up! She'd just barely gotten into the basics of magic. Quitting now would be like giving up before even really getting started. And she'd started getting used to being able to compete on a semi-even footing with Grampa and Ben against all the aliens and crooks and mutants. What if they were in trouble, and she couldn't help them out? She _needed_ those spells. Making a decision right then and there, Gwen swore to herself she'd never let Charmcaster have the spellbook back, no matter what. Charmcaster'd only use it to do more bad things, anyway. "Hahah, right. What _you_ should be scared of is that watch dropping off your wrist one day. If you didn't fight aliens you'd just be a loser playing video games all the time." She got a little amusement watching him clutch the Omnitrix with his other hand in an instinctively protective motion.

"Shaddup, nerdzilla. Even when I'm just me I'm like fifty times more awesome than you. So whadda ya wanna do about magic chick?"

"Why're you asking _me_?"

"Well, she's kinda your bad guy, isn't she?"

Gwen shrugged. "I guess. It's up to Grampa though."

"I hope he kicks her out. The Rustbucket ain't big enough for her too. Can you imagine how weird it would be to, you know, do things with her? Breakfast and stuff?"

"Super Twilight Zoney. Grampa won't fall for her little act, he's old and smart. That 'Oh help me, save me!' maiden in distress crud won't fool him."

"You know you just jinxed it. Now you'll have to share your bunk with her, hahah!"

Gwen's skin crawled at the very thought. "EWW. NO."

"Well, where else would she sleep?"

"In a seat!"

"Grampa'd say we should be nicer to guests'n junk."

"She's not a guest, she's a crook."

"She's a guest crook. Grook?"

"Cruest sounds better."

"Yeah, it does." His smile was less mocking and more friendly now. "Don't worry about it. I'll keep you safe just like I always do."

She considered smacking him again, and decided it wasn't worth the bother. "I'm not worried."

"Okay, let's go see what Grampa decided on, then? And I wanna get more money for fries either way."

"Pig. You had two things of fries already."

"McDonald's fries are like half air!"

"Then why do you get them?!"

"They're _delicious_ air!"

"Fine, whatever." They walked back to the van and hopped in, and stared at Grampa expectantly. She could feel Charmcaster's eyes stabbing the back of her head, and glanced over... the white-haired girl was calmer now, totally blank. Creepy. "So, Grampa, where're we dropping this creep off?"

"We're not, Gwen. I've decided to keep her with us, since her life genuinely appears to be in danger otherwise... and don't worry, she's agreed to behave, and I'll be keeping a very close watch on her. I know this is going to be an... unusual... living arrangement, but I'm confident that if we all work together to make things go smoothly, there'll be no trouble at all." His broad, beaming face was saintlike. For a second, she freaking hated it.

She turned to stare at Charmcaster with unabashed suspicion, and Charmcaster looked back calmly. But behind that calm, Gwen imagined the girl was laughing snobbishly.

--

The days that followed were the total definition of awkweird. Charmcaster was polite and all, but the very fact that she was polite was in and of itself enough to freak Gwen out. They all kept a close eye on her... and she was pretty sure Grampa didn't sleep much, if at all, the first night or two, but after a while, and countless minor 'tests' set up by the Tennyson family, it seemed to become pretty clear that Charmcaster wasn't gonna try to kill them anytime soon. Grampa gave up his bunk rather than making anyone share, and eventually started to talk about having her and Charmcaster cooperate on spell research to figure out how to break the curse, even. And Gwen even started considering it!

But she still kept the spellbook hidden, and only took it out when she was sure Charmcaster was asleep.

One night, though, she wasn't careful enough.

She'd just turned on a flashlight and dug the book out from behind a loose piece of the Rustbucket's siding, when she heard Charmcaster's half-drowsy, half-alert voice.

"So that's where you keep it, huh kid? Real paranoid. I approve."

Gwen stiffened and turned back to glare at Charmcaster, still in the stylish but by now wrinkled-looking purple coat, who was stretched out in Grampa's bed with eyes half-open and cattish, seeming to be looking at nothing in particular. Fingers tightening on the precious item, she deliberately clicked the light off and put the book back. She'd have to move it later, when Charmcaster was _really_ asleep.

"Pretending to be asleep, huh? Just what I'd expect from you."

"Relax, kid." Charmcaster sounded amused and almost adult. "I don't need that grimoire back. It's just a beginner's manual, I memorized everything in it a long time ago. If you wanna get some use out of it, I could care less... not like it'll help you be a threat to me." The eyes widened briefly, just long enough for a wink.

Huffing, Gwen flopped down in her bunk and tossed the blanket over herself as forcefully as one could toss a lightweight piece of fabric, rolling to stare at the roof. The sounds of Grampa and Ben breathing peacefully in their sleep was a lot more soothing than talking to Charmcaster. But even if Charmcaster was quiet it'd be hard to get to sleep anyway. She felt wide awake, way more awake than the white-haired wizardess looked. She'd just outlast her, wait till _she_ went to sleep first. A sideways glance at her nemesis showed Charmcaster still and ragged-looking in those old, never-changed clothes.

"Don't you have anything else to wear?" Gwen couldn't quite stop herself from asking. Not in a mean way. She just really wondered.

Charmcaster tugged the collar of her coat up closer to herself, looking self-conscious. "Nothing wrong with this outfit, it looks great on me. I usually keep it clean with magic."

"Oh."

"It's not _you_ guys ever wear anything different Sunday to Saturday," Charmcaster jabbed back with a little challenging spark in her voice through the sleepy blur.

"I have five different sets of that shirt and those pants," Gwen defended her wardrobe choices self-righteously. "They were on sale, and they're cute. And Grampa's got sentimental attachment to that Hawaiian shirt. Clothes're pricey when you're big as him anyway."

"So what's your cousin's excuse?"

Gwen grimaced. "He's a boy." Charmcaster chuckled softly. After a pause, Gwen joined in. "Well, since you can't magically do your laundry anymore... I guess we ought to take you shopping sometime?" Gwen asked, getting back to the original subject. For the first time, Gwen started to feel a little, a very little, sorry for Charmcaster. How dependant _was_ the girl on all that magic, anyway? Even her _name_... "Hey, why's your name Charmcaster? Is it like a villain name or something?"

"Was wondering if you'd care enough to ask. It's my real name, not that I've got a birth certificate or anything lame like that. Everyone in my family's named like that. We're all magically gifted, and once you get old enough to cast your first spell, you get your name. The first thing you cast determines what your name is."

"That's weird. But kinda cool. So if there's a whole family of you guys around with magic powers, how come you're not famous or something?"

"Oh, that... most of my family's... aaaahhhmmm... dead, anyway." Charmcaster's yawn in the middle of the sentence served as dramatic punctuation of how little the girl cared, and it startled Gwen even wider awake. "Well, a couple are technically just undead. But most of 'em are gone. My uncle Hex and a couple distant cousins are the only ones left with warm blood in their veins. And me, heh."

"Oh. Sorry."

Charmcaster's sidelong glance had a kind of searching cunning in it, and suspicion. "Why? You didn't know 'em."

"Well... I am, okay?"

"Fine, whatever sap." Charmcaster closed her eyes, and silence reigned for about half a minute. "Thanks," she finally said, quietly.

And that was when Gwen first started to feel comfortable falling to sleep without Charmcaster being asleep first.

--

"God, that's so gross! Who's _this_ creep?!"

Gwen didn't mind playing the part of exposition girl, even though it was kinda hard to concentrate while watching hundreds of centipedes, spiders, ants, and other random bugs crawl slowly up the Rustbucket towards the roof. The gnats flying around getting in her face didn't help make it any more fun, either. Maybe it was better this way... with bug guy sending all his squirmy minions to _them_, that left Ben and Gramp free to take the crook down.

"He's this weird homeless freak who tried to blow up a city one time. Ben stopped him, so I guess he's holding a grudge. I wish he knew how he _found_ us, though!" Muttering a few minor arcane words, she blasted some bugs getting uncomfortably close back down to the ground. But there were too many to keep that up for long, and she didn't know any serious wide area magic yet.

"Well, if he's really got all these insects under his control, he's probably able to scout out lots of ground. Look, stop playing around and just zap them all already!"

"I _can't_! I don't know how to do that yet!" Eyes straining through the swarms of gnats, Gwen saw that Ben had turned into Grey Matter. Oh, great. This was gonna be one of those long, annoying fights. "Can't you help show me what to do? Tell me the right words to use or something?!"

Charmcaster's hand on her shoulder was warm and firm. "Sure, I can help ya, kid. Hm... those're black widows down there, right?"

"Y-yeah."

"Good. Well, Gwenny-poo, this is how I _help_ people. Bye bye now!"

Charmcaster _pushed_ her.

Too startled to really scream, Gwen still had enough time to mentally berate herself for not expecting it before she hit the ground and became covered in frenzied insects. And very quickly after that, she stopped having any time at all.

--

It took a couple minutes for Ben to come up with an ingenious trap to capture bug guy, but with Grampa's help, the blue weirdo was soon snared and ready to be picked up by the cops... who never seemed to be around when they could be _useful_! Oh well, more fun for him. He'd just transformed back and started to pat himself on the back when a scream knocked him out of self-congratulations mode.

"Gwen?!" No, it hadn't been Gwen. "Charmcaster?! What happened?!" He ran over to the van as quick as he could, squishing bugs with his feet on the way, like dancing on lava. Charmcaster didn't answer, she was too busy freaking out, but she didn't have to. Ben saw it all for himself. Gwen flopped on the ground, still half-covered with a bunch of fleeing bugs, red bumps from bites all over her skin. She wasn't moving.

She didn't look like she was _breathing_, but _that_ couldn't be right!

"She just slipped, and I tried to grab her, I _swear_ I did, Ben..."

There wasn't anyone to beat up anymore. He had to be calm about this. Mature. He had to think about what Gwen would do. What _would_ Gwen do? Get the first aid kit, duh! "We've got a first aid kit in the Rustbucket! I'll get it, you get the rest of those bugs off her!"

But when he started to churge into the van, something hit the back of his head, and made him slam into the metal, hard. Squeaking out a word his mom woulda disapproved of, he fell to the ground, clutching his head... tried to get up, through the throbbing ache, but something hit him in the chest. And then things were biting him... the bugs, oh crap, the _bugs_ were getting all over him now! And it became really obvious with each bite because his skin started to ache like it was on fire. He was also vaguely aware that he was starting to breath hard and sweat a lot, but that seemed nothing compared to the overriding pain that just got worse and worse, and the dizziness that made it impossible to get up or think straight. Flailing increasingly on instinct over actual thought, sweltering blackness crept around his mind and ate it up.

--

She laughed.

She couldn't help but laugh.

It'd all been so _easy_. Telling Clancy where the Tennysons were had been a good idea, it'd been so very simple to deal with those brats once they were distracted by someone else. As if they didn't even get the concept of having more than one enemy per day, or something. She'd just plain lucked out on Ben getting into one of his weaker alien forms, allowing the fight to go on longer than usual. Hard to believe such stupid kids could be so much trouble to so many different people. That just left the grandfather to deal with... a fat old man who wore the same hideous shirt day after day...

And speak of the devil.

"Charmcaster, what happened?! Are the kids okay?!" Huh. Apparently the senile fool felt the need to stick to the impression that she was on their side. How pathetic. Maybe he just didn't want to accept the obvious, the things right in front of him.

"Okay? Oh, no, I'm pretty sure they're dead," she announced cheerfully. She poked Ben's head with her foot, watched it tilt and then fall back. "Yeah, they're gone. I've gotta say, I didn't really expect the kids to know any better, but _you_... come _on_, Gramps, you're just too trustworthy for your own good." It was funny, to watch the contortions his broad face went through, settling finally on shock.

"D-dead? You... you can't be... there's got to be some kind of mistake!" He rushed over to their corpses. She let him, leaning lazily against the Rustbucket as though it were a throne. Smirking, she watched him brush away and stamp out the remaining insects, check his grandchildrens' pulses, give them CPR. Far too self-satisfied to interfere, she just let him do his thing, until he ran out of things to do and was forced to face reality. When he finally looked up at her again, it was with a face as coldly hateful as a stone gargoyle's, and she grinned delightedly at the sight.

"You took advantage of the attack to backstab us."

Charmcaster decided to play with him a little more, pretended to look surprised and innocent. "Oh, did I? Are you sure they didn't just fall on their own? Am I guilty of murder now just because I'm not acting as sad over those spoiled kids being spiderfood as you think I should be? Maybe I just... BWAHAHAHA, HAHAHAAAAA, oh my _God_ I couldn't keep that up! Hahahah. Ahhhh. I just couldn't keep it up. Yeah, I killed 'em. But really, what'd you _expect_ to happen?" From mockery she switched straight to offense, happy to push his suffering as far as it would go, now that she finally had her moment of victory. "Let's think this through, Max," she purred. "You travel around with these ten year old squirts all the time, and they don't know anything about fighting, or guns, or poison, or death magic. But that's what you let them go up against, right? This could've happened any time, if Ben'd gotten the wrong form, or timed out at the wrong second, or just plain did something a little too careless. Gwen was practically a gimme without even any alien shapechanging crap to keep her alive, and only some tiny, and I _promise_ you, _totally_ amateurish dabbling in magic to make up for it. The only surprising thing is that she's lived this freaking long, really. Aren't you supposed to be responsible for these kids and keep them safe? Kids always want to play superhero, but grownups are supposed to stop them. So I happened to be the one to take them down, so what? It could've been anyone else... awww, are you crying, Max? How sweet. A little late, though. If you _really_ didn't want them to die, you shouldn't have let them play with criminals and aliens and wizards in the first place."

"I told myself," he said hoarsely, tears still trickling down his cheeks, "that it was _worth_ it. I told myself that Ben could be like me, only _better_. I told myself that the kids could be _different_. Special. That they'd take the risks and do good in the world and never, ever have to pay for it..."

"You told yourself a lot of shit," she said calmly.

He looked at her, and stopped crying, and something in his steady gaze made her muscles tighten. "Maybe. Maybe I did. Or maybe it would have all been fine after all, if you just hadn't been here to mess things up."

She shrugged. "Guess we'll never know, huh? So, what's your next move Gramps? Gramps?" Eyeing him suspiciously, watching him slowly approach, she started to wonder if maybe she shouldn't have gloated so much, and instead, taken the opportunity to take the old man out of the picture, too. She still couldn't use magic while he was alive... no magic except one kind. But she could take him in a fight. Right? Sure. He was ancient. He was flabby. He was... he was starting to look very big, and looking, and scary.

His hands were squeezing around her neck in a sudden pouncing movement that left her totally unprepared. And she understood her mistake. The grandfather was trusting, and always wanted to believe the best of everything, but she'd pushed him too far. And he was still healthy enough to keep up with all the adventures the kids got into. And _she_, stupidly, hadn't thought to get any weapons. His hands were huge and their pressure was relentless. She wondered if the angry heat radiating from those palms was anything like what the spider poison had felt to the kids.

"Pl-please, M-Max," she tried, as a last resort. "Y-you don't... wanna... urkh... k-kill me..."

"Maybe I should have been more selfish," he whispered, voice cracking and shaking. He was crying again now. "Maybe I shouldn't have let them follow their dreams and have their adventures. I don't know. But I figure the _least_ I can do," and he punctuated 'least' with a particularly painful squeeze, "is make sure my grandkids' murderer gets a fair payback for her sins!"

Struggling didn't do any good. He was a _lot_ stronger than she'd thought, and pretty fast, and good enough at this kind of thing that he knew how to keep her restrained better than she knew how to slip out of being restrained. Eyes starting to see spots, desperation was added to the huge sweaty hands as things that were constricting her throat, and she grabbed desperately for her lifeline, the fallback that would make it all okay.

Her fingers clung to the little plastic audio casette hungrily, and she managed to squeak out one last word.

"Rewind."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"I have five different sets of that shirt and those pants. They were on sale, and they're cute. And Grampa's got sentimental attachment to that Hawaiian shirt. Clothes're pricey when you're big as him anyway."

And just like that, she was back in bed, back to Gwen being alive, back to not being strangled. Interesting, she was actually drowsy, like she had been the first time. That spell was _good_. Which meant _she_ was good, for being able to cast it. Oh yeah, her skills were definitely archmagus territory.

This time around, she studied the snoozing old man up in the front seat carefully before replying to Gwen. He looked so _harmless_. She wouldn't make the mistake of underestimating him again, though. He was a big jolly Santa up until she pushed him too far, so she just wouldn't push him this time. She needed a concrete plan to get rid of him, like she'd had for the spawnlings. "So what's your cousin's excuse?" She was proud of herself, to so precisely imitate the dry tone she'd used the first time. There was a script to go by, now, up until she wanted to deviate from it. It made it even easier to fake amiability, to pretend she didn't want all three of them dead as soon as possible. Gwen for having the gall to steal _her_ magic. Ben for just plain being dangerous. And the old coot... Max Tennyson... she previously hadn't had much of anything against him, but now, the vivid memory of his fingers squeezing her neck served as motivation to see him as a direct enemy. If nothing else, she didn't want to off the kids and then go into hiding the rest of her life to make sure the old guy didn't find her and get his revenge.

"He's a boy."

Charmcaster didn't chuckle this time, it wasn't so funny when you were already expecting it.

"Well, since you can't magically do your laundry anymore... I guess we ought to take you shopping sometime? Hey, why's your name Charmcaster? Is it like a villain name or something?"

"Sure, why not," Charmcaster mumbled, annoyed at having to answer the same questions over that she didn't even bother with the script. "I didn't like my real name, so I took that one. Uncle seemed to approve. Uncle's a loony, but I did learn some useful things watching over his crazy-ass shoulder." She stopped to yawn, using the moment to look over Gwen, not that there was much there to see. Nothing she hadn't seen the first time. Undeveloped kiddy figure in cutesy pajamas. Smart expression, but not as smart as it thought it was.

"Don't guess you'd tell me what your name was if I asked you, huh?"

Hmm. Well, this could be a good chance to build a little trust. But she had to fight it a little, to keep it from seeming too out of character. Propping the side of her head up in a hand, she looked at Gwen with a challenging smirk. "Tell ya what, kid, I'll make you a deal. I'll tell you a secret if you tell me one. How's that sound?"

"Deal. So, what's your name?"

"Are you sure you wanna ask that?" Charmcaster teased the girl, enjoying playing with her. "You could ask for any secret, ya know."

Gwen doublethought it. "Okay, then, is that your real hair color?"

"Yep. You only wish you were born looking as gorgeous as me."

"Psh, whatever."

"So, my turn." And she intended to use it on something more useful than asking about something stupidly superficial. Information was weaponry. "Does your grandfather know martial arts or something? He seems to keep up with you guys pretty well for someone who's old and overweight."

"Trust me, most of that is muscle. And I don't think he exactly knows karate or anything, but he's got some kind of... training. I dunno what."

One point in favor of _avoiding_ direct confrontation with the grandfather, then. Drat. No big deal, that kinda stuff wasn't really her style anyway, without magic backing her up. She'd just have to be more... subtle... this time around. "So, he's ex-military, something like that?"

Gwen's stare was suspicious. "Why the sudden interest in my Grampa?"

"So sue me for getting curious about the guy letting me stay in his van, sheesh. Forget I asked, then." She put just the right amount of mild offense in her tone to hopefully make Gwen feel guilty.

"Well... if you wanna know stuff about him, ask him, not me, okay? I'm sure he'd be happy to bore you with the same stories he's told _us_ like ten million times."

"Maybe I will. He seems like a nice guy."

"He is. And you better not do anything to him, or you'll be sorry."

"Oh, please. He weighs as much as six of me. What could I _possibly_ do to him without my magic?"

"I don't know and I don't wanna know. I'm just saying, if you mess with him I'll kick your butt."

"But messing with your cousin's okay, huh?"

"I didn't say that."

"But you _would_ be less mad if I picked on your cousin, because you don't like him, right?" Charmcaster chuckled. "Chill, kid. I'm just messing with you. I'm not gonna rock the boat." Oh baby, was she going to rock the boat.

--

Maybe putting Gwen on the defensive hadn't been the smartest idea, but that little brat had already shown she wasn't a real threat, anyway. Charmcaster devoted most of her energy to figuring out how to get a proper grip on the older Tennyson. It was a lot tougher than she expected it to be. Oh, he was glad to pal around with her, and totally fell for her 'I'm just a girl who fell in with a bad crowd because I never had a nice family like this one to teach me right from wrong' act. He told her wild stories of the 'good old days,' took her shopping for new clothes (and conveniently didn't notice when she shoplifted), and was more than happy to explain the basics of the Omnitrix and how that infant Ben had gotten ahold of such a thing. All the while the guy's grandkids looked on in suspicion and maybe even a little jealousy. She learned so much crap about their little family she could care less about, but nothing that could be called an active, exploitable weakness in Max Tennyson. He was just as competent as he was easygoing, that was the problem.

Poking and prodding at him ever with slowly-growing frustration, she finally hit upon a plan of action sparked from a random offhand comment. At an Applebee's, of all places, she managed with much playful cajoling to get a few beers into him after the kids ran off to windowshop. And after he'd had a few, and she'd been maybe a little more friendly than would've been expected, he mumbled a tiny... offcolor... joke underneath his breath just before turning to pay the bill, chuckling wryly and shaking his head in a way that broadcasted that he knew he shouldn't have said it. She probably hadn't been meant to hear it, and he definitely wouldn't have said it sober, and as far as perverted jokes went, it'd been pretty tame. But it got the wheels in her head turning.

It was something to build on. Old man with no one to love him, no one except kids... but even old men still had needs, right? She could use that. Not that she'd let him fuck her, but it was amazing how much you could manipulate people with a few teasing words and an occasional 'accidental' flash of cleavage. And besides, he was such a goody two shoes he almost _had_ to have some major sexual repression going on. In Charmcaster's experience, it was how these things worked. Either you had all your flaws on the outside, nice and obvious, or you kept them inside and let them grow into quiet repressed obsessions. The ones inside were harder to find, but once found, were as good as puppet strings.

So she set about the stalking and capturing of Max Tennyson's libido, all out of the sight of the brats. Not so much because she felt they could cause trouble by themselves, as because she surmised 'Grampa' would be a lot harder, maybe even impossible, to lure into her trap if his position as family patriarch was constantly paraded before him. No, her role was to do the opposite. To remind him what it was to be young and wild and free. To an extent her seductive advances were more philosophical than sexual, and in that aspect it wasn't even totally an act. She really did get a spark of naughty excitement whenever she managed to persuade him to do something reckless behind the kids' backs. Even something as minor as speeding was turned into a tense and teasing mindgame with her throwing innuendo and pushing his buttons ever so delicately.

Stop being old.

That was what she was _really_ telling him.

The flirting, the winking and suggestive comments, the second-long affectionate touches and accidental brushups against him were all secondary to the main theme of breaking the shackles of responsibility and remembering what it was like to be free. And as blackly hilarious to her as it was to corrupt him sexually behind the backs of those young pests, it was even better to get him seeing her point of view on life and _sympathizing_ with it. That was real power, right there, and she had it without casting a single spell. It thrilled her.

But it was an incomplete victory, very incomplete. She could never get him to openly defy his role of responsible grandparent in front of the spawnlings, or even get him totally comfortable with her calling him by his first name. Physical intimacy was as far away as the stars themselves unless she got him seriously inebriated, and there weren't many chances for that. Even drunk, he wouldn't do more than give her waist a quick squeeze or talk about how she'd make some lucky guy very, very happy one day. It was disgusting. Even long past the point where he could pretend it was all innocent, he kept up some kind of mental block that prevented him from 'taking advantage' of her. In those moments of alcohol-fueled pressure when she would push him hardest, he would talk about how young she was, how she didn't know what she was doing, how she deserved better than him anyway, how it would damage her if they were caught.

He wanted her, she _knew_ he did, she saw to it that he did whether he wanted to want her or not.

But he refused to give in.

Charmcaster's frustration started to turn to a kind of hidden fury, a constant mental teeth-grinding at his resistance. No one could seriously be this fucking _nice_, could they?! Not _really_! Would it kill the fat old bastard to give in to his dark side just once?!

Clancy would be coming soon. She wanted him out of the way _before_ then, so she could deal with the kids during the attack, like last time. Time was running out on her schedule, and she was running out of ideas. She could have stepped things up to drastic, stupidly porn-reminiscent levels if the brats hadn't been around, but their very existence limited her moves. There wasn't much left to do, so she decided to take a gamble, and go for a simple all or nothing ploy. If this weakness of his was to be used against him, she had to do it _now_, or forever hold her peace.

She arranged for the kids to be shopping for a day, and had him all to herself. They talked together, a conversation in which she very carefully excluded any flirtacious behavior, acting purely friendly and innocent. And then there was a nice casual lunch, some disgusting African grub recipe that she pretended to like. Never had smiling with a mouthful of food been so hard. After that, when the day was just starting to get wellworn but before the sun had started to dim, she laid her cards on the table, 'bumping' into him outside the Rustbucket and staying close, leaning into him ever so slightly and not moving.

"I'm not ugly, am I?" she asked very quietly with just the slightest hint of woundedness to it. Not irrational, just a little hurt and dealing with it maturely. That was the way he'd like it. Her hand on his chest, fingertips moving just a little bit, enough to suggest a caress without actually doing it.

As expected, he tried to back out of the situation, but gently, not wanting to hurt her feelings. Hah. As if she'd ever stoop to having such worthless things. His hands were on her shoulders like they'd been on her neck that other time, engulfingly huge and warm, trying to push her back to a socially-acceptable distance. "Of course not, Charmcaster. You're a very beautiful and intelligent girl, and some day you'll make some lucky person very, very happy. Some lucky person that isn't _me_," he added firmly. But he hesitated before he said that part, just a tiny bit.

Now came the rather more revolting part, but she certainly wasn't going to turn back _now_, having come this far. She stood on her tip-toes and leaned her face into his neck, letting her lips brush his roughly-shaven skin as she replied. The mixed smell of cologne and nervous sweat didn't make it any easier, but what good was it being a backstabber if you didn't get in your role all the way? "C'mon, Max... I know you want me. And you know I want you. No one else has to ever find out. Tell you what... just this one time... let me do a little something for you." She let her free hand drop down to his crotch, expecting a rather obvious result and not disappointed. Whatever his brain was telling him didn't matter, his _body_ was responding just fine, old or not. She forced herself to lick underneath his jaw with the tip of her tongue, inwardly gagging but outwardly just as seductive as ever. "Lemme give you a handjob, Max," she demanded bluntly, voice still tender. "Just a quickie, to get it out of our systems. We'll feel better for it. Then I promise, if it's what you want, I'll never, ever try to do anything like this with you ever again. I can pretend to be another one of your grandkids after this if you want, but just for now... let's have us one moment where we stop giving a shit about everything and everyone else."

It was a decent speech, she'd spent all day working on it, and with the accompanying physical persuasion she had high hopes that the old man would fall to it. She leaned back from him, now granting him the distance he'd wanted earlier, and crossed her hands over her chest while staring at him challengingly, letting him be deprived of the closeness so he'd want it more.

She watched the emotions battle in intense conflict over his face.

Come _on_, old man.

_Who're_ _you_ _kidding,_ _fatso,_ _you_ _know_ _you_ _want_ _me_, she longed to snap at him. And then immediately laugh in his face at the very thought of letting him touch her. But that wasn't how the game was played. She cursed him for being physically fit so that she had to resort to this kind of crap in the first place.

Give in.

Give _in_, dammit.

Give IN, you miserable old bastard!

At last, at long last, he broke down and nodded, ashamedly, face red as a candied apple, mumbling justifications and conditions she didn't bother listening to. After that, she let her body go on autopilot, unable to really let her brain dwell on it and overcome her disgust at the act she was forcing herself into.

The things she did for evil, Jesus Christ.

Though aiming in theory for a playfully seductive atmosphere, it seemed that even her acting wasn't good enough to completely hide the basically mechanical nature of her actions. It showed in his growing awkwardness, when he should have been getting more relaxed, more excited. But at this point she didn't care, he'd be dead soon anyway. She just had to get this over with.

God help her, she actually felt a little _guilty_ for corrupting the old geezer like this, even though she still didn't feel a thing over murdering his grandkids! For that alone, she would relish killing him. How _dare_ he make her feel bad about this, if he hadn't been such an annoying bastard she wouldn't have needed to do this crap in the first place! It was all _his_ fault, if he wanted to die clean he should have died easier the first time she'd planned everything out so well! She'd slit his throat and laugh in his face while she watched him die, and that was how she'd feel better about herself again.

Some tiny part of her brain mentioned, while she was busy pumping his shaft, that this was not the kind of thinking that regular, sane people really engaged in, but she was pretty sure she was far too stable and consistent to be crazy. Right? Right. There was a big difference between having no morals and being nuts.

When he seemed about ready to climax, she reached for the razorblade she'd hidden in a pouch. Just when he came... that was when she'd do it. No man could _possibly_ think straight enough to resist while he was in the middle of an orgasm. She'd kill him then, and be rid of him, and then Clancy would help take care of the other two. Then she'd have her powers back, and she could get rid of Clancy. Easy-peasy.

In all her plotting, however, she hadn't calculated one crucial factor that became readily apparent.

Trajectory.

"AUGH! FUCK!" she swore like a sailor with completely unmitigated rage, clutching her eye. It hadn't even hit her on the eyelid or anything, it had hit straight in the middle of her freaking eyeball! It stung like murder and though she wiped and wiped it was being incredibly hard to get out, being so sticky. Max was apologizing frantically, a meaningless buzz in the background she no longer cared about. She gave up and decided to fix things the only way she knew how to at this point.

But before that, she was going to vent.

"You know what, FUCK you, old man," she snarled at him, staring furiously through her one good eye, taking some small amount of dark joy from his priceless expression. "Fuck you and your fluffy granddad act, and your stupid culture-exploring cooking adventures, and your damn rusty piece of shit van with alien crap grafted in it! You're not even worth all this trouble! Next time I'm just going to grab a rock and bash your head in, you old bastard! Fucking... goddammit... this is such SHIT, I don't know why I even bothered to do all this in the first place... REWIND, DAMMIT!"


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The next time, she was caught by the police, holding the bloody weapon.

"Rewind."

And the time after that, she slipped during the maneuver and ended up chasing a bloodied and panicky Gwen around a parking lot for ten minutes until she got tired. Who knew little kids could run so fast and never get tired?

"Rewind!"

And then she forgot when Clancy was due to show up and he managed to ruin everything, his creepy crawly minions messing up an incredibly elaborate and sophisticated murder plan that she had charted out in detail on seventeen and a half pages of notepad paper.

"Arrrrgh, rewiiinnnddd."

By this time Charmcaster was getting tired of it all, and she dealt with her weariness by taking refuge in self-mockery and open sarcasm, blatantly revealing her plans and then rewinding after she'd enjoyed the shocked expressions of the trio.

It all seemed so _pointless_, when there was no real element of risk to it. The only reason all the Tennysons were still alive was because they kept getting lucky and she kept getting bad breaks. Their streak couldn't last too much longer. Every iteration, she learned something new, and every loop her planning got better and better. This was taking _way_ too many loops for what should have been a simple triple murder, though. She started to wonder if maybe there'd be consequences for messing around with time this much.

As it turned out, there were.

She'd long since forgotten how many loops through time she'd made in her scheming, but eventually, when she looped back again, something was different. Something big. Something important and unmistakable.

There were other freaking Tennysons.

There was a second Ben, and a second Gwen, and some jerk named Kevin she'd never heard of. Older by maybe six years or so, having no idea how they got into the Rustbucket while Charmcaster and ten year-old Gwen were talking about the phenomenon Charmcaster mentally referred to as the Great Tennyson Wardrobe Malfunction. Side effects were to be expected when spellcasters delved into magic beyond their ability to handle, and as much as it grated on Charmcaster to admit it, she'd been using powerful magic with only the most basic self-taught theoretical grasp on it. Magic that maybe she hadn't been ready for. But there was no turning back now, she was stuck in it until she offed the Tennysons, even if next loop everyone sprouted purple fur.

It had been pretty panic-inducing at first, until she'd realized that the Tennysons had no way of pinning the mysterious appearance of older duplicates on her. There was no obvious motive why she would have done such a thing, let alone an explanation as to how she _could_ have when under the curse, and best of all, the older Ben and Gwen didn't ever remember interacting with her in the first place, so it wasn't like they could give clues to their younger, more gullible selves. Exactly _why_ the older ones didn't remember was something that Charmcaster had fretted over until her brain cramped up, and she just couldn't figure it out.

Well, that was time travel for ya.

Feh.

On the bright side, the extra Tennysons gave her more guinea pigs, more opportunities to probe at the weaknesses of her enemies and figure out how to take them down. It wasn't any harder to fake innocence, in fact, with her Tennysons distracted by the other Tennysons and Kevin, it was _easier_. Particularly Kevin.

Yes, let's aaaall focus on Kevin, she often thought to herself smugly.

--

"I mean, it's just _stupid_," Gwen complained to her older counterpart, who went by Gwendolyn to save everyone on serious confusion. They were technically taking a hike through the park to stretch their legs, but the real deal was that she couldn't stand any more of her older self making Bambi eyes at ugh, Kevin, and had to stand up to it. Gwendolyn was taking it calmly like she didn't even know what was going on, which only aggravated Gwen further. "After all the stuff he did, you're just hanging out with him like nothing ever happened?! He tried to kill people with a train wreck!"

"You're hanging out with Charmcaster like she never was evil," Gwendolyn pointed out, smiling wryly.

Wow, so this was what it felt like to be in an argument with yourself. It sucked. Gwen felt like how Ben probably felt every time she dissed him. Only, she was always _right_ when she argued with Ben, and she was right when she was arguing with _herself_, dang it!

"That's totally different and you know it! Charmcaster can't use her powers, and she'd die if she stayed away from us! We don't have a choice, it's not like I like her hanging around us all the time. You could get rid of Kevin any time you wanted! And you should. Just because he's cute doesn't mean-"

"Wait, you think he's cute?" Gwendolyn blurted.

They both blushed and spent the next twenty seconds very carefully not looking at each other.

"Stop trying to change the subject, he's evil, he's gonna lead you into a trap or something."

"He's had chances before, and not taken them. Look, Gwen, I know you couldn't have ever expected the future to turn out like this, but, well, this is what happens, so you'd better deal with it sooner or later. Actually, I'm kind of proof that you _do_ deal with it, a lot better than Ben, even, so I don't know why I'm even arguing with you about it," she added with a vaguely perplexed air, staring up at the tree limbs as sunlight gleamed through them. The shadows were knife-like on the ground.

Gwen stopped to lean against a tree, letting the shade rest on her face, giving her a feeling of hidden safety. Gwendolyn stayed in the sun. "That's another thing. Why'd Ben get all responsible and stuff? He's such an immature hothead, I can't believe how serious he is now."

Gwendolyn looked at the ground. "Well, I think losing Grampa had a lot to do with it. And even without that... he's just, growing up, you know? He knows the risks to being a hero now, and doesn't want people to get hurt. Like me, for instance... that's a big part of why he shares your views on Kevin, but I hope he'll get over it."

Gwen laughed and waved a hand negligently. "Psh, like our dorky cousin could ever care about anyone but himself, shut up."

"It's okay to admit you care about each other, ya know," Gwendolyn replied, voice steady and relaxed. "You learn stuff like that when you're older."

"Nph. Can we get back to that freak Kevin? Or maybe how we can get a working portal going to send you guys back. This is freaking me out, and I'm already freaked out enough with Charmcaster around all the time."

"Aww, I love you too, Gwen," Charmcaster's voice came mockingly from a few feet behind her.

Gwen eeped and whirled around, glaring with pointed hostility as Charmcaster smirked.

"How long've you been listening to us?"

"Most of the conversation," came the amiable, unhesitating reply. "What?" she went on after seeing Gwen and Gwendolyn's expressions. "I'm a sneaky bitch, I thought you both knew that by now."

"That's probably the most honest thing you've ever said to me," Gwendolyn said.

Gwen looked at Gwendolyn and then at Charmcaster and her lips curved in a smirk of her own. So her older self didn't trust Charmcaster either, _that_, at least, was something to have a united front on.

"So why'd you follow us?" Gwen said with a careful edge to the words, enough to hint not so subtlety that neither of them thought Charmcaster belonged here.

The witch shrugged. "The boys are all bonding, so I thought, maybe a girl's night out? Walk out. Whatever you wanna call it, I just got bored and wanted some company."

"Well, fine... just don't expect us to be all friends or anything. You're still a bad guy even if you've got a leash on."

"Exactly," Charmcaster replied unexpectedly. "Which is why you can trust me, a lot more than Kevin. No one knows what Kevin really is because _he_ doesn't know. Sure, I'm a bad guy, sure, I'll go right back to kicking your butts once I get this dumb curse removed, but until then, I know how to have fun, and don't mind having fun with you two. Why _not_ be friends while it lasts, instead of having sticks up our butts and being miserable? I could teach you guys a lot, you know."

Gwen huffed and crossed her hands over her chest, shaking her head in disgust.

"Is this where you give us your join the Dark Side speech?" Gwendolyn asked with amused skepticism, and, Gwen couldn't help but notice, instinctively doing the same hands crossed pose that _she'd_ done.

"Totally. Come over to the forces of sin and anarchy, Gwens! We have CAKE!"

"The cake is a lie," Gwen and Gwendolyn both said automatically, then shared a giggle. Charmcaster joined in with a more sedate chuckle.

"Okay," Gwen said slowly, feeling the atmosphere out, "maybe this won't be so bad. While it lasts. I guess we can at least be nice to each other. I guess it'll be easier to work out this curse and time travel stuff if we all put our heads together, anyway, right?"

The three of them walked and talked until the sun started to set.

--

Gwendolyn watched Charmcaster carry her mostly-asleep ten year-old self back to the Rustbucket with easy strides. She frowned thoughtfully at the sight. She'd long put it upon herself to be the cautious one, but there were dangers to being _too_ judgemental. And if this history's Charmcaster had a chance at being not such a bad person, who was she to deny that chance? Especially when she was already practically embracing Kevin with open arms. Just because Kevin was (and how it pained her to admit it, even if just to herself) hot and Charmcaster was just Charmcaster didn't make a difference on the ultimate redemption scale.

Kevin and both Bens were pretty incredulous at the sight, it was downright funny. But Grampa hadn't seemed surprised, just giving a warm smile at the sight and hushing everyone so Gwen wouldn't wake up before being tucked in.

"Maybe I was wrong about you," she told Charmcaster quietly, away from the others, after watching the girl tuck her younger self in with casual delicacy. "Making bad choices doesn't always have to mean you're a bad person, does it?"

Charmcaster leaned against the Rustbucket's inner wall in a way that did her figure enough justice to make Gwendolyn jealous, and grinned, Cheshire cat-ish. "Naw, you're right about me. I'm a bad person. But bad isn't the same as unlikable."

It was so hard to get into the girl's head, it was worrying. It made Gwendolyn... not exactly suspicious, but curious, as though that flowing white hair concealed a puzzle waiting to be solved. "Well, however you wanna see yourself... today was a good day. So thanks for that."

"Gag me with your granddad's cooking already, what's with the sap?"

Gwendolyn hesitated, painful memories flashing through her thoughts as she fingered with her hair absentmindedly. "Well, it's just that... in all the encounters I remember having with you... you were always pretty... hostile. Except for, you know, that very first time. Back when you were working with us just to betray your uncle." She stared at Charmcaster unwaveringly at that last sentence, and Charmcaster's face didn't budge from its cool sociable smiling expression one inch. She was so hard to analyze!

"Yeah, that wasn't a half bad scheme considering I did most of it on the fly. So close to ultimate power... oh well, maybe next time."

"Why's magic so important to you?" Gwendolyn pressed, frustrated for answers. "What are you going to _do_ with all that power once you have it? I've been around you for days now, I've fought you a dozen times but I still feel like I don't know anything _about_ you. I don't even know why you have such a weird _name_."

The whitehaired girl's face altered enough to blink, and let the smile slip as she responded seriously. "My name? That's nothing big. Just the name I got saddled with the day I came outta my mom, like everyone else. So my family's got an eccentric naming scheme, so what? Eccentricity goes with the magic powers."

"I'm not eccentric."

"That's just God's way of telling you you're a less competent witch than me," Charmcaster shot back teasingly.

Gwendolyn raised an eyebrow and repressed the urge to grin. "You wanna test that?"

"Maybe another time. I wanna get some things ready for breakfast tomorrow, so your grandfather doesn't forcefeed us more exotic grossness again. I've got a casserole idea, and it needs to set."

"Sounds great. Need any help?"

"Naw, you'd just get in the way. And it's more fun if I can surprise you guys, anyway. Oh, before I do that, though..." she added suddenly, leaning in with a wickedly conspiratorial look, "you want some tips on how to get into Kevvy's pants?"

"What? No!" Gwendolyn spluttered, face on fire. "I don't even _like_ him... _that_ much!"

"Sure, kid, whatever you say."

"You don't get to call me that anymore! Not when I'm at least the same age as you if not older!"

"You're still younger in all the ways that count.. the Light Side lacks so many 'practical' disciplines, doesn't it? That's why you should be evil, the heroic girls don't even know what foreplay _is_, let alone how to really please their guys. Why do you think the rebels without causes like Kevin are always going Vader?"

"Stop being such a perv. I'll smack you," she threatened, holding up an unused pillow. "I mean it."

Charmcaster's face looked exactly the same as it did whenever they were about to battle. "Bring it."

Thus commenced a very quiet but ferocious pillowfight.

Charmcaster lost.

--

"I'm just saying, if you guys aren't gonna magically pop back to your own time real soon, maybe we should think about upgrading the 'Bucket. You know, get a trailer or something. I'm tired of sleeping on the seats every second night!"

"This isn't easy for any of us, but it's only temporary. Stop being so selfish and think about other people for a change."

Gwen goggled. This was _too_ weird a breakfast scene to take in when her stomach was still rumbling. "Ben, did your older self just tell you off? Isn't that really like telling _yourself_ off?"

"I think I like the younger one," Kevin put in. "He's still got... zest, or whatever."

"Both Bens are just fine the way they are," Gwendolyn said, ruffling the heads of both of them with a grin. They recoiled with identical expressions of mild annoyance.

Gwen let out a laugh. "What we pay for in inconvenience we get back in fun. This is the most hilarious thing to ever happen in the history of, like, anything. Ever. Hey, Charmcaster, how long's that casserole gonna take?!" she added in a semi-loud yell, more because she was impatient from hunger than anything else. She could _smell_ it, all sausage and cheese and bready things. It was gonna be delicious. Way better than what Grampa tried to pass off as food.

"Every time someone asks me that I add on an extra minute to the cooking time!" she yelled back pointedly. "Just kidding, I'm serving plates right now. Since you're so impatient, maybe you can help bring a couple, since I have yet to grow spare arms."

"Oh oh oh! Let me!" Ben cried out, jumping up with enthusiasm and raising his hand to slap his watch.

The older Ben grabbed at his hand. "You could break something turning into Fourarms in a space this small, with this many people around. Relax. I'll help."

"Man, when did I get to be such a stick in the mud? I'm so boring now!"

Gwen beamed at the older Ben as they went to perform plate-carrying duties. It was good to know Ben _eventually_ got mature.

The casserole, cut into solid square wedges, was gleaming and gooey and crunchy in all the right spots. Steam wafted up from it faintly. It was hard not to drool.

Plates were served. Grampa was called in from giving the Rustbucket a windshield wipe to enjoy breakfast with his _very_ extended family and two unrelated guests. The air hummed with the energy of so many different closely-interconnected personalities sitting at the same foldout table. The only problem was, Ben kept stealing her food! Typical XLR8-assisted immaturity, and everyone just _laughed_ at it instead of helping her. Jerks.

"Here, have some of mine," Charmcaster offered unexpectedly, sliding her plate over. "There's enough for seconds anyway, so dig in."

Ordinarily, Gwen would have been wary of getting villain germs, but Charmcaster'd barely nibbled at hers, so it didn't seem too gross. And the cruest _was_ trying to be nice. Shrugging, she grabbed her fork and cut a heft chunk off, watching the thing sproing slightly, like a sponge.

Grampa started coughing, so Gwen reached over and patted his back. It just got worse, though, a hacking sound with a hoarse wheeze in it. So gross. It was one of the few times Gwen really remembered Grampa was _old_.

She slapped harder, and blood suddenly spewed out of his mouth in a narrow, powerful stream. It splattered across the table and onto Kevin, who was sitting on the opposite side. Opening her mouth to scream or cry for help or, or _something_, nothing came out, her vocal chords seemed paralyzed. Then Gwendolyn started doing it too, fine one moment and suddenly coughing up huge sprays of red that got all over the food and the furniture and everyone's clothes. She tried to cover her mouth, but the coughing got so violent she couldn't even keep her hands properly positioned. Screaming in a panic about what to do, both the Bens fell victim to it after that, the younger one, her Ben, collapsing to the ground almost immediately with painful-sounding retching, and the older one trying to run off, getting just a couple paces before falling too.

Grampa slumped, and quietly dropped his face into his plate with a faint squish.

Tremblingly, Gwen placed a hand on his neck. Tried to feel for breathing. Whispered in his ear, she wasn't even sure what. The sound of her whispering, like butterfly wings through the air, was the only noise whatsoever.

Oh my God, he was _dead_. She looked around, took in the horrible scene. They were _all_ dead! It was supposed to have just been a nice, a nice breakfast and they were, they weren't moving or breathing or anything, and she didn't know what to _do_...

The diamond-hard edge of Charmcaster's voice was something to latch on to. It provided focus. Direction. "You bastard," she hissed at Kevin, who still had one hand on his glass of milk, face disbelieving. "I can't believe after all this time you'd choose to fuck with them like _this_. Lacing _my_ casserole during the night, you're fucking sick. I guess _two_ Omnitrixes was just too much to resist, huh, you son of a bitch?!"

"What the fuck are you _talking_ about!" he almost screamed, slamming his fist into the table. Gwen watched, feeling entranced, as droplets of blood flew off and landed on dewy blades of grass. "If I wanted to off them I woulda done it before now! You're trying to set me up, aren't you?! You did this, you made the damn casserole, and now they're all dead because of you, and you're gonna _pay_ for it!" And Gwen got her first look at the more sophisticated version of Kevin's absorbing power in action, watched him smash an angry fist on the side of the Rustbucket and watched him turn into metal, shiny and jagged. Only, he must have accidentally absorbed some of the blood all around too, because there were streaks and smears of red, like cherry flavoring stirred badly into milk.

"Going to attack me now, and then Gwen after that, finish the job? Clean sweep. Not exactly clean, though. If I had my magic right now I'd transmute your liver into sulphuric acid."

Gwen looked back and forth between the two, shaking all over, tears blurring her vision. She didn't know who to believe. One of them _had_ to have done it. Which one?! Not that it even mattered! With Ben and Grampa... gone... it was hard to really think of why she shouldn't be happy to join them soon. Picturing life without them, completely without them, was a blank chalkboard.

"You didn't eat," she said slowly as the thought came to her, voice feeling like a tight coil of wire in her throat. "You're the only one who didn't eat some of it, Kevin. Why didn't you eat it, Kevin?" she asked, pleaded, almost.

"I-I wasn't hungry," he said in a very unKevin-like voice, wanting her to believe. "You gotta believe me, Gwen, I've done bad things in the past but that's over now, I don't wanna hurt anyone anymore!"

"Charmcaster wants to do bad things. That's just the kind of person she is. She admits it." The words tumbled out of her mouth as though they came of their own will and not hers, her body just a tool for alien forces. Even she didn't know what she'd say next. "She admits she's a bad person. But you... you're different. You lie. You trick people. You stole the Rustbucket, they told me about that. Why do you have to lie, Kevin?!"

"It wasn't me," Kevin insisted stubbornly, "and I'm not gonna let that bitch get her way. I don't care if you believe me or not, kid, Charmcaster's gotta go down for you to be safe!" He charged around the table and at Charmcaster, one arm outstretched with violent intention.

Charmcaster wasn't quick enough to dodge, and got tackled to the ground. Gwen watched helplessly as Charmcaster was bruised and bloodied by metal fists, and the witch didn't do anything, _couldn't_ do anything, being outmatched in strength and body mass, and lacking any magical defense. She didn't beg for help, she just panted and shrieked in pain and struggled with a kind of frantic uselessness, limbs moving constantly and constantly useless.

It was how she didn't ask for help that caused Gwen to decide.

Screaming words of dark and terrible arcane wrath, Gwen turned the grass into a whirlpool of razorsharp green tendrils that clutched at Kevin and squeezed, cut, restrained. It didn't hurt him much in his metal form, but it gave Charmcaster the chance to scramble away and give her a desperately grateful look. It was so intense it might as well have been a weepy hug from any other person. From a self-acknowledged villain, it was the closest that Gwen'd ever get.

"Thank you," Charmcaster said hoarsely, still panting, face glistening with sweat. It was the most fervent thanks Gwen had ever heard. She knew she'd remember it and the look that had come with it for the rest of her life.

"You're welcome." She wasn't sure where she got the strength to say it.

Then it all became a blur as she couldn't hold back the crying, and sobbing came with it so she couldn't talk anymore either, and she _knew_ it was bad for the spell if she was like this but she couldn't _deal_ with it, she just couldn't!

God, they were dead.

They were _dead_.

She wanted to scream out how sorry she was, or scream at God to make it all better again. But she knew it would _never_ be better again, never ever.

A new pain was added to her lot, but so all-consuming was her confused grief that she didn't even notice the new hurt until she literally couldn't breathe. Then she noticed, burning like fire on her throat, something warm coming out all over her shirt. She was bleeding, something had cut her, but she couldn't see, she couldn't... it was getting too hard to stand, so she fell to her knees, and tried to grab her throat tight to keep all the blood in, but it kept coming out anyway. She heard screaming shrieks of hateful fury from Kevin, matching snarls of venom from Charmcaster, and then lots of other sounds, more fighting. And then, she heard something she didn't understand, a single word Charmcaster gasped.

"Rewind!"


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

They were fishing together. Fishing, of all the stereotypical vacation things to do! Grampa'd even brought out a couple beers (which he had to keep smacking Kevin away from). Gwen felt bad for the fish, a bit, but at least they were throwing them back. It'd taken the collective efforts of practically everyone to convince Grampa that cleaning them for eating would be more trouble than it was worth. The girls and guys had instinctively huddled off into their own little groups, the boys raucous and boisterous as anything, the girls a lot more dignified in their banter.

"Thanks again for helping us take out that bug freak," she said to Charmcaster while watching the witch pluck a thin, silvery fish from the water with feline precision. "You risked your life back there and you didn't have to."

"No big deal. Couldn't let you die just then, you owed me a shopping trip," came the smirking reply as she preened over her new tank top and shorts. "I never noticed how _hot_ my coat could get in the summer without cantrips keeping it ventilated."

"It's okay if you take it off, you know," Gwendolyn put in amusedly. Charmcaster was _still_ wearing her coat, just mostly unbuttoned, like a kind of cloak. Strange as the look was, somehow she made it work. Gwen thought it was probably just because she always looked so confident, like she knew something everyone else didn't.

"Nuh-huh-hoooo. This darling's worth more than _you_ are. Italian import. If I'm not swimming, sleeping, or at the laundry mat, the coat stays on."

"It looks weird," Gwen said. They'd gotten to the point where potshots were par for course now without anyone getting snippy about it.

"_You_ look weird." Charmcaster tossed the fish at her, and she shrieked and juggled it frantically before tossing it back into the water.

"Gross! It was slimy! Stop laughing, older me," she added, grumbling. "You're supposed to be on my side."

"No one's really on their own side, let alone anyone else's," Charmcaster said with a mockingly intellectual tone. "We're all great big bundles of conflicting desires fighting against each other all the time. Find the biggest desires, tug on 'em, and watch people dance." She stretched out a leg rather deliberately in view of the boys, the coat falling back a little more.

It was hard not to gag at the flirtatious behavior. "Why does being a bad guy make it mandatory for you to be skank, too? Stop that! Jeez. Kevin's looking at you all weird."

"Really now," Charmcaster said blankly, eyes flitting towards the aforementioned boy without her head moving. "Should Gwendolyn be worried?"

"I'm not worried," Gwendolyn huffed, putting new bait on her hook with a rather vicious gesture. "He's not a possession, he can look at who he wants. And anyway, he's probably looking at me. You're in the way."

The totally mortifying situation of watching your older self basically throw herself at a boy who was still evil in _their_ time, the one Gwen thought of as the _real_ time, was something she'd only barely gotten used to. It still made her squirm. At least Charmcaster'd been so much nicer than she'd ever expected, almost like she knew before all this happened exactly what to say and do to get along with them. Things weren't really half as stressful as she'd thought they would've been. Really, weirdness aside, the whole setup with Charmcaster and her older self and Ben's older self and Kevin was kind of... nice. Like having an extended family get together.

"D'you ever get the feeling that this summer would be awesome if it never ended?" she asked suddenly, watching the sunlight play over the lake's gentle waves.

Charmcaster gave her a very strange, twisted up look with emotions in it Gwen couldn't figure out. "Most people go to sleep grateful the day's ended, kid. And dreading the day after that when they have to wake up. You'll grow outta that cutesy perky optimism soon enough."

"Well, excuse me for enjoying life! Hey, where're you going?"

"I'm gonna ask Kevin out."

Gwendolyn nearly snagged her face with her fishing hook, and Gwen stared.

"Why not? He hasn't made a move at your older half yet, and God knows she's been throwing herself at him for days now," Charmcaster went on. "I figured, maybe I can get a good movie and a meal or two outta him, at least." She trotted off, coat trailing behind.

"She just said that to mess with you," Gwen said with a laugh at Gwendolyn's freaked expression. "She's not _really_ gonna... oh... wow, I guess she is."

Exactly what Charmcaster said to the brooding guy wasn't clear, but his louder reply was.

"Get bent."

Kevin stalked off, leaving Charmcaster just standing there, totally nonplussed for the first time Gwen had ever seen her. It would've been incredibly funny if Gwen hadn't started to like Charmcaster enough to care when someone was being rude to her. Well, okay, it was _still_ funny. Heehee.

"Hmph. Rude, much?" Charmcaster mumbled, leaning against the pier's rail and trying, in vain, to salvage her dignity.

Served her right, really. But Kevin shouldn't get away with it, not after he'd been rude all week for no reason anyone could see. Gwen resolved to investigate, and went after him. She didn't really want to see more poor fish plucked out of their habitat anyway.

"Hey. Hey!" she repeated herself louder, since he didn't stop the first time. This time he did, reluctantly, and turned to look at her with a stony expression.

"What?"

"Just 'cause you don't like her doesn't mean we can't all get along, you know. You're a guest here too, remember. And especially after you dropped her breakfast casserole..."

His eyes narrowed. "It was prob'ly a crappy casserole anyway. You guys're way too trusting."

She let out a disbelieving laugh, wiping sweat off her forehead. The summer sun was blazing full blast today. "You're kidding, right? You do remember that you're _still_ a bad guy in this time, don't you? Who's been way more of a pain so far than Charmcaster has."

"I _know_ that!" he half-yelled, looking pained and frustrated. "Look, I'm _tryin'_ to make up for that, okay? That's why I'm with them. So I can make up for... stuff. She's not even tryin', she just wants to hang around till she gets her magic back, that's all. Charmcaster's still the same person she was when she was fightin' you."

Something about having Ben's former arch-enemy throw accusations at _her_ arch-enemy... former or not... irked Gwen. "Don't talk like you know her," she snapped. "You never even met her before you got time warped."

"Oh, I met her, alright," he said tiredly, cynically, kicking a random stick. "I met her a dozen times, maybe a hundred. In the streets, in reform school, in chat rooms and bars. There's plenty just like her, all sweet-talking and niceness till they get what they want, and then they drop you like you burn 'em to touch. They'll be your friend for a year or more and then be your enemy just like that, without a goddamn blink. Women... pff, at least us guys are honest when we hate someone."

Her first impulse was to get angry, to jump at him for being so generalizing and sexist. Then she started to think about what kind of life he'd led to get where he was now. Impossible not to see the look on his face. Not the look of a bully with the upper hand, but the look of someone used to being suspicious, of living in fear of getting cornered. Animal paranoia. "Honesty's... kinda a complicated thing," she said slowly, remembering times when she'd lied and half-lied to people, people she cared about, people she was close to, for all kinds of reasons. And the times when she'd lied without knowing she was lying, because she hadn't wanted to let herself know. "Maybe she's all the bad things you say, but she's good things, too. Anyway, I wish you'd just try to at least get along. Everyone else is. We're all stuck together so we might as well try to not hate each other."

He chuckled and patted her head condescendingly. "Says the chick who fights with her cuz like ten times a day. You grew outta it, though."

It was her turn to hmph. She wanted to be more indignant, but it was impossible, because he was just so _cute_. The very definition of a gang musical bad boy, but she couldn't help but fall for it. She hated it and loved it at the same time.

"Okay," he agreed slowly, with the strangest smile. It wasn't a very nice smile. There was something snake-like in it. "Sure, I'll play nice. Boy scout's honor."

And after that, things got nicer for everyone. Except that she could practically feel the air burning between Charmcaster and Kevin, as they stared at each other with half-hidden suspicion when they thought no one else was looking.

--

It fretted at Charmcaster, that she couldn't figure out exactly how to put a leash on Kevin. He had powers, he was in close proximity, he was cynical. As an unnecessarily risky element in a scenario already filled with them, he needed to be brought under control. The Tennysons seemed to like her now. She knew how to be nice, how to say the right things, how to bond and pretend she gave a damn. How to fake being an ordinary person, instead of the essentially amoral witch she was. The funny thing, the really, truly hilarious thing, was that she was so good at it, and the Tennysons were basically such nice and trusting people, that she could openly tell them she was self-serving and deceitful and they wouldn't really grasp the implications. Even the grandfather, who should have known better. Sexual wiles weren't even necessary anymore, friendship and a fake family was doing the job just fine.

But Kevin, Kevin just had to be the fly in the ointment, didn't he?

She was confused as to why he was reacting to her so negatively this time around, as well. He had been more or less indifferent in the previous loop, but now... either she'd let something slip, some clue he'd caught on to, or it was just some random funk of his that she couldn't have predicted. She ran over the details of each conversation, every little interaction, again and again in her head, and couldn't come up with any mistakes. It'd been foolhardy to ask him out when he so clearly liked Gwendolyn, maybe. Maybe that was it. If she got those two to hook up, he'd be too distracted to be glaring at her. But she was at a loss as to how that could be done. Gwendolyn had already practically asked him out, and Gwen blushed half the time around him, even. He just wasn't taking the bait, probably because of some stupid masculine pride thing. She knew the type. Chauvinism still ruled the brains of boys who wanted to prove themselves that badly. He wanted to be a hero, like Ben, or at least to be _looked_ _upon_ as a hero, and have the girls swooning over him. Neither Gwen nor Gwendolyn were the swooning type, and it would have frankly sickened her if they ever became the type.

Maybe _that_ was it.

He was probably just put off because she was acting too confident. He thought she had an ace up her sleeve. Well, she _did_. But he didn't _know_ that. Maybe if she put herself in a situation where he saw her as weak and feminine... maybe even put herself in a position to be _rescued_ by him... then he'd have to see her as a human and not just a fellow crook. One damsel in distress routine for her, one hero routine for him, and he'd relax a little. Enough for her to get on with business.

Killing _other_ people wasn't so hard. Setting yourself up in a deathtrap, now that was a lot more challenging than Charmcaster'd expected. She had to arrange a plausible scenario for her to be in trouble while only Kevin was nearby, trouble enough that he would immediately help her out but no one else would interfere. It wasn't like she could tie herself to a railroad track! And getting Kevin away from the rest of them was tough. For someone seemingly less social than most people, he sure stuck to the Tennysons like glue. And watched her like a hawk. Ridiculous. What on earth had she done this time around to make him so suspicious? She'd been nothing but nice this time except for the poisoned casserole, and no one had known about that!

Failed idea after failed idea picked up, examined, and discarded, eventually she grew frustrated and acted on impulse, pretending to trip and fall in front of a slightly speeding truck.

Things did not turn out as she hoped.

In pretending to trip, she accidentally tripped for real, and her fake scream turned into a _real_ one on the realization that she was going to get splattered if she didn't get rescued very quickly. The truck was swerving, but not enough, and Kevin, Kevin was just _standing_ there, eyes wide and face blank like a village idiot's!

Her savior came in the form of not one but _two_ XLR8s, one Ben to an arm, gripping her gently and getting her well away from the road before any accidents occurred. The truck driver slowed for a moment, then apparently decided to not make a big deal of it and sped up again, the vehicle going out of sight. For the first time in her life, Charmcaster was intensely, fervently glad for the existence of heroes. The rapid pounding of her terrified heart bore testament to her gratitude. Of course she was still going to kill them in the end, just like she was going to kill Gwen even though Gwen had tried to save her from Kevin in the last loop, but there wasn't anything wrong with that. Just because she was happy she wasn't dead didn't have to mean she had to _reform_!

She gave the XLR8s hugs, tighter than usual due to the fright-fueled adrenaline still flowing through her, and glared past them at Kevin. He'd been closest, she'd made sure of it. He hadn't moved, he hadn't done a thing. Just frozen up like a pansy. "Thanks for the _help_," she told both Bens meaningfully.

"You're welcome."

"No problem."

"Sorry I just kinda froze up there," Kevin apologized, after she glared at him for a good ten seconds. The apology was for the Tennysons' sakes, not hers, she was sure. "I just didn't think on my feet that time, heh."

The wheels in Charmcaster's mind churned. She could still turn this to her advantage. It could work out, if not necessarily the way she'd planned. Oh yes, there were plenty of familial and hero comradeship dynamics to screw up. "Y-you didn't even twitch or blink," she said slowly, allowing the terror of her near-death experience to enhance her acting, making her voice shake. Be weak. Be feminine. That's what's needed now, to redirect suspicion. Kevin can be the strong one and therefore the suspicious one, oh yes. "You almost looked... _glad_," she slipped the lie in, subtle as a dagger in a sword fight. He hadn't looked glad, he'd just looked oddly expressionless, but she would take that and twist it like a blade in his back. "Maybe _you_ didn't help me because you _want_ me to d-die, because you hate me so much!" A little hysteria. Not quite crying, but a good bit of the emotion that sparks tears, mixed with outrage. Sound afraid. _Look_ afraid. Cling to the XLR8s just a little more, like they can protect you from him.

She'd hoped the Bens would take the bait. Even better, though, Kevin _took_ the bait.

"Oh, come off it, you lying bitch!" he yelled angrily, as thuggish in his ironically justified rage as she could have dared hope. His fists clenched, he even took a step forward, like he wanted to hit her. "Quit playacting, we're not all as gullible as your little girl friends! You're not _really_ scared, and you tripped on _purpose_, I _saw_ you!"

"Stop being paranoid, Kevin, why would she throw herself in front of a truck?" one of the XLR8s snapped. It sounded like the older Ben, by the words, but she couldn't be sure, as both XLR8s looked exactly alike.

"Yeah, that's stupid," the other one said. "I know she's evil and all, but you're still half evil, so shut your face."

The blatant emotion had done its part. Now Charmcaster turned to dignity and logic, standing up straight, but backing up behind the XLR8s to keep distance from Kevin. "I'm serious, I really think he wants me dead," she said more calmly. "He's always hated me, I don't know why. I mean, I know I've done bad things, but how much do you know about _his_ criminal record? I've never _killed_ anyone!" Between the shoulders of the two aliens, she watched Kevin seethe with fury, and oh God, it was so hard to not laugh. Cloak and dagger had its perks, but she missed being able to mock the enemy openly.

"He told us, once, that we wouldn't trust him if we knew everything he'd done..." the presumably older XLR8 said slowly, pondering the concept.

"Oh, come _on_, you're not buying this shit, are you?!" Kevin near-screamed, raging full blast, male hormones all a go. "I can't believe you! You know what, fuck you, Ben, you've always been a pain in the ass and that's never changed! You can go to hell, I don't care if she fucks you over anymore!" And with that outburst, he began to walk off, to who knew where.

Of course the older Ben had to be mature and try to stop Kevin from leaving, after that outburst. And of course the younger Ben had to be immature and tell Kevin he _should_ leave. And Kevin, well, Kevin mostly swore.

Charmcaster just watched, fingers twitching, mentally imagining that she was jerking them around on puppet strings. It was very, _very_ hard not to cackle in proper evil overlord fashion.

With all that masculine pride and all those unresolved emotional issues floating around, a fight was practically inevitable. Not being one to insist on staying and watching the action when it would be counterproductive, she yelled a cheap cover about getting 'help' and fled back to the Rustbucket, where Gwen, Gwendolyn, and their grandfather waited, clueless of the latest disaster.

This was the perfect opportunity to make a move. It wouldn't necessarily be clean cut, but sometimes when you saw an opening you just had to take a stab. The superheroes who had less immediate trust of her were all busy. That left the three less powerful ones who _did_ trust her, who she'd gotten close to. If she took them out now, quickly, and then got back to the scene of the fight, she could take down the remaining two Tennysons while Kevin was still pounding on them, with a little luck. It was risky enough that ordinarily she would have never tried it, but with a free reset button, why not?

She hated the goddamn tank top, anyway. It was too itchy.

And so, when she knocked on the door and Max opened it for her, she greeted him with four inches of serrated steel in an eyeball, pushing straight through the socket and into the brain. The little moan that was all the sound he made, she stifled hastily with her free hand, before letting him fall.

The Tennysons _really_ shouldn't have trusted her around the cutlery.

The next part was harder. She yanked the knife out and hid it back in her sleeve, and screamed for help, leaning over the dying old man to block the view and making it seem like she was trying to help him. Lots of screaming, lots of swearing, sound panicked, that was the key. Sound panicked enough so that they didn't think to be suspicious until it was too late.

It was the older Gwen who came up first, running up far closer than was wise, trying to get a clear look at her relative.

"What happ-"

With a deft, practiced movement, Charmcaster sprung up, slipped behind Gwendolyn, jerked her chin up with one hand and slit her throat with the other. The actual slitting part was the hardest part of the whole maneuver, it was more difficult than the movies made it look to really make a deep, fatal wound that kept the victim from screaming. And for some reason her hands were shaking while she did it, her whole body feeling a little odd and hollow. She was very conscious of the warmth of Gwendolyn's body and the blood pouring out of it, and the helpless little sounds the dying girl made, somehow worse than the grandfather's. She put it down to adrenaline from the whole truck almost-died then rushed to go kill people thing. There was no reason to feel different about this killing than any of the others, but still, it felt different.

Oh well.

She let Gwendolyn drop, too, and turned around to see little ten year-old Gwen, with an expression that... should have been funny, but wasn't, for some reason.

This was getting old, that was all, Charmcaster rationalized to herself. The same old shock value wasn't fun anymore. Past time to end it.

"Not the first time," she explained casually to Gwen. "Probably the last, though. Don't fight, it'll hurt less that way." She wasn't a sadist. She didn't _enjoy_ hurting people. She just didn't care if she did.

Ordinarily, in these kinds of situations, Gwen would have either gone for help or just fled blindly, unable to cope with the reality of the situation. But this time, for some reason, she reacted totally differently.

This time, she fought back.

Screaming words of magic with eardrum-shattering rage, Gwen blasted her with a spell Charmcaster hadn't even known had been in the spellbook. Shards of ice, streams of fire, and spasming jolts of electricity all merged together in a torrent of painful energy that left Charmcaster screaming despite herself, on her knees and writhing. Beyond even the pain, though, her pride hurt her. She forced herself to her feet.

"_Fuck_ you, you little dabbling amateur," she snarled. "You think you can master everything I've suffered for in a summer vacation? Fine, you want to suffer, then you'll get to suffer!" She lunged with the knife, aiming for a nasty gut wound, but Gwen was fast and a small target, and she ended up stabbing a cushion instead. And got another blast of elemental agony for her efforts. This time it hurt worse, and stayed longer, and she almost dropped the knife, having to cling to it desperately with two shaking hands.

She wouldn't be beaten by this, this little twerp! Being a good person didn't make you better at magic, and life wasn't some dumb fairytale where the people with the most innate talent were all virtuous! Maybe she couldn't fight back with magic and prove her superiority, but she was damn well not going to lose to a _kid_! For once, emotion took her over, and she remembered every time, every single loop, where Gwen had been a complete pain in the ass, somehow surviving so often, so frequently defying the odds, and coming out the other side without even any serious psychological scars.

"Why can't you just freaking DIE already?!" she screamed, stabbing blindly, seeing movement and color more than the actual person she was attacking. "COME ON AND DIE, KID! JUST DIE! JUST DIE! JUST DIE!" She wasn't sure how often she said it. She wasn't sure how much she stabbed, or how often Gwen fought back with magic the child shouldn't have even known yet. What she was sure of, was that eventually, Gwen stopped fighting back. Stopped moving. Stopped breathing.

Charmcaster stood over her fallen rival, panting and sweaty, and started to laugh.

That was it!

The bitch was dead, finally!

Now, now she just had to drive the piece of crap truck over to the fight scene, and use a little Plumber technology to finish off the three weary combatants. Piece of cake!

She'd as good as won already.

Having held in her laughter for so long, it was completely impossible to stop laughing now. She laughed and laughed and laughed.

Turning around vaguely in the direction of the steering wheel, her laughter caught in her throat as she saw a second _her_ standing there.

Another Charmcaster.

She didn't see the metal bat her twin was clutching until it was in the air, swinging for her head.

And then came darkness.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

"Wakey wakey. Eggs and baccy."

"That movie was _so_ overrated," Charmcaster mumbled instinctively in response, coming to consciousness with a grim reluctance borne of the certainty that she didn't want to know what was happening right now.

"Yeah, it was just a love letter to dusty old genres that deserved to die in fire anyway."

That was _her_ voice. Her very own voice, using the kind of tone she used when she knew she had the upper hand and wasn't gonna lose it. This was not good, not good at all.

She opened her eyes, forcing herself to see the situation plainly. Took in the other Charmcaster, in the good old buttoned up purple coat, sitting down with the metal bat resting casually on her knees. A fake Charmcaster, an illusion, a doppelganger. Something.

"Kevin?" she asked experimentally, trying to move and finding herself thoroughly and uncomfortably tied up. Wrists tied to the steering wheel, legs tied together. Keys in the ignition, maybe? No, of course not, that would have been just too much to hope for. The bodies were gone, but the blood was still splattered around.

"Nice try, but no cigar. Kevin's shapeshifting doesn't get that extreme... so far, anyway. Wanna guess again? It's not hard. I can give you a hint if you want." The suggestion was accompanied by a maddeningly superior smirk. Charmcaster had never really been in the position of being condescended by herself before, and it was incredibly confusing. She'd never thought anything but the highest of herself and her abilities. This whole situation was just twisted.

Illusion conjured by one of the Gwens? No, they weren't advanced enough to create an illusion this good, with real tactile effects on the world. _She_ could have done it, but she didn't have access to any of her magic necessary for that kind of thing right now...

Wait.

Wait.

She had done it.

That was the only explanation that made any sense.

She'd made doubles of Gwen and Ben entirely by accident. It wasn't beyond reason for her to have made a double of herself, equally unintentionally. But why hadn't the double been immediately obvious? This faker, this clone, had to have been lurking around, hiding...

Waiting for a chance to use that bat she kept rolling around on her knees, maybe.

The double, who Charmcaster labeled in her head as Doppelcaster from that moment on for sake of mitigating personal confusion, saw where her gaze went, and smiled.

"Surprised that I'd hit myself, maybe? You must not have been through many iterations yet. That's alright. You'll catch on quick, if there's much more rewinding. Speaking of which, where's your tape?"

Charmcaster blinked, suddenly very conscious of the lack of the tiny weight of the tape in her waist pouch. It was _gone_. "I... I don't know," she mumbled, startled into honesty. Drat it. She must have dropped it somewhere, maybe when she'd almost been hit by that truck. If it was smashed now, she was so, _so_ screwed... unless the fake had a tape of her own, too? It was possible.

Doppelcaster's eyes narrowed introspectively. "Hm, maybe you're not as ignorant as I thought... you've gotten smart enough to hide the tape this time around, anyway. But that leaves us with a problem." She leaned closer and cupped Charmcaster's cheek, smiling in the mock-friendly fashion that Charmcaster had always been used to using on weak prey. "You see, other me, I _need_ that tape."

"So you don't have one of your own," Charmcaster said slowly, innocently, trying to weed out any information she could to make sense of it all. Not that she expected to be too successful... after all, she was trying to weed information out of _herself_, and she knew exactly how paranoid she could be about that kind of thing!

"No, I have mine," Doppelcaster replied unexpectedly. "Hidden in a safe place. But I need to destroy yours."

"Why?"

Doppelcaster sighed and leaned back in her seat, picking up the bat and letting the tip plunk repeatedly against the floor. "I guess you'll be less trouble if I just explain it all at the start, huh?" she asked, sounding tired. "God, I'm so sick of explaining everything to everyone. I'm the most experienced one with the loops I've met so far, and Jesus Christ, it gets on your nerves to just say the same crap over and over and _over_."

"The most experienced one? One what?" Charmcaster tried to wiggle her limbs to test her bonds while making it looking like she was just adjusting her position to get more comfortable Judging by the amused smirk and eyebrow quirk on the part of her captor, it didn't fool Doppelcaster any. And the knots were pretty solid, too. No way was she getting out of it herself, she realized, and felt herself get just a little more scared. She was totally helpless and at the mercy of... herself. And she _knew_ she wasn't a nice person, even without the bat to the head emphasizing it!

"Look, you've seen multiples of at least the Bens and Gwens in this loop, right?"

"Right. They've been in other, um, loops, too, and that Kevin freak."

"Right. Well, as much as it hurts my pride to say it, that happened because, let's face it, we messed with magic way too big for us to handle. Even just one temporal 'rewind' like we've done is something that the greatest of wizards and arcanists struggle with performing without drastic side effects. We got lucky, the first few times, but we pushed our luck. The more loops we do, the more times we rewind, the more shit gets screwed with in the timeline. So far the problems have been mostly restricted to weirdness with the people who've hung around the tape the most. But sometimes it'll take an even bigger swerve than usual, and grab someone more random, like that thug with the absorbing powers. And once grabbed, it's pretty likely that the new player will stay in the game, since they're now close to the tape and predisposed to be sucked into the next loop too."

"So you're saying, the more I... we... whatever... rewind, the greater the chance of these duplicates showing up is? And random bystanders, too?"

"Right. It's not a constant, steadily multiplicative effect... sometimes you'll go a loop or two where things almost seem normal, but it does get worse and worse gradually as things go on. It's fucking exponential."

"Okay, but can you get to the part that explains why you hit me with a freaking bat?" Charmcaster snapped impatiently. It still throbbed, too. She would have killed for some sympathy from those losers she was murdering and attempting to murder, instead of being cooped up with a version of herself that for some reason seemed hugely unsympathetic. "And why you act like we haven't experienced the same things, too. You're me and I'm you, so we've all been through the same rewinds, right? I mean... you don't _look_ like an older version of me, or anything..." she added hesitantly, scanning over Doppelcaster's body for some obvious difference. There wasn't one, other than the clothing difference... which made perfect sense, because Doppelcaster hadn't gone shopping, after all.

"God, you're so dense! It's hard to believe I was ever a loser like you. The rewind is technically supposed to bring you back to the same point in time every use, but that's just another thing that gets distorted with repeated usage. It can jump back further, too, and _will_ after a while. Or worse, jump forward, into a random loop, and leave you with about one and a half seconds to figure out what the hell is going on before you get fucked over, if you're unlucky. It doesn't even have to be a loop the version of you that you are has personally experienced. If the divergence from the original rewind point is big enough, it just sticks you into that reality with a second you, one who's close enough to the original rewind point to have theoretically started the whole chronological barf bag."

Charmcaster's eyes glazed over. "This is confusing..."

Doppelcaster grinned. "Tell me about it. Don't worry, it gets even better. And by better, I mean worse. Buuut I'm hoping to avoid all that, this time around."

"What do you mean? You have a plan? Does it have to do with why you tied yourself up?"

"_I'm_ still free. _You're_ the one tied up," Doppelcaster pointed out, lips curling. "And yeah, it does. See, there's a way to minimize these... loop-related side effects. You have to extinguish each drastic alteration in each loop, so that the likelihood of the next loop being fucked up is reduced. You do that, over and over, like trimming a bush, and eventually you wind up with something nice and manageable where you can finish off the Tennysons and move on with your life. That's my theory, anyway."

"So you're not sure?"

"Nope, but the last few loops, I killed off every duplicate except myself, and it seems to have worked out, seeing as how there's only one duplicate me to deal with this time around," Doppelcaster stated proudly.

Charmcaster took a moment to process that, and then her eyes widened in horror. "Only one duplicate... you mean you killed _yourself_?! AS IN _ME_?!" she screeched, unable to even think about faking calmness. The gentle ting of the metal bat's tip against the Rustbucket's floor was much more ominous now.

"You're getting it now. See, I have to minimize all the unnecessary side effects... that includes your tape, unfortunately. I need to destroy it, so mine can be the only one."

"Come on, this is insane," Charmcaster babbled desperately. "You don't really wanna kill me, I mean, I'm _you_! That's like suicide or something! Can't we just finish off the rest of the Tennysons together and go on with our lives not messing with each other?"

Doppelcaster snorted. "And have a second me floating around for the rest of my life? No way. Besides, if I have to rewind, the fact that I let you live in this loop will mess up the next timeline. Nothing personal, but you've gotta be pruned."

Thoughts whirling in her head maddeningly, Charmcaster closed her eyes, trying to ignore the aching of her skull and the uncomfortable position, trying with all her might to think of something to do, some plan or idea that would help her get out of all this. It was a blank, just a swirling void of fear and confusion. The world suddenly didn't make sense any more, and she didn't know what to do about it except suffer mindlessly, like an animal in a laboratory. She wondered if this was how the Tennysons and Kevin felt, all those times when she spontaneously killed friends and family right in front of their faces.

"So, where's the tape, hmm?" Doppelcaster's unwelcome voice broke smoothly into her thoughts.

The tape. Of course. The _tape_. That was an anomaly that would serve as her shield and salvation. Charmcaster clutched at the idea with frantic desperation. "I'm not telling you where I hide it unless you untie me," she replied immediately, certain she finally had a hold, some measure of leverage, to get back in the game versus her unlikely opponent.

Doppelcaster looked unnervingly unsurprised. Amused, even. "Thought you'd say that. Well then, I guess that leaves me with no choice, does it?" The bat's thick tip thudded against the floor solidly, with a lingering metallic ring.

"Wh-what are you going to do now?" Charmcaster asked despite feeling certain that she didn't really want to know.

The bat slammed into her jaw and she let out a shriek, coppery blood filling her mouth as she felt a tooth come loose.

"Where's the tape?" Doppelcaster asked flatly, emotionlessly.

It was her only leverage. She couldn't let go of it, or she'd be dead. She had to endure, no matter what this psychotic version of herself was going to do. "I... I don't kn-"

This time, the bat went low, taking her by surprise as it smashed directly on her kneecap. She screamed louder, feeling bone shatter and splinter up through the skin. Someone had to hear. The Rustbucket wasn't parked that far from the main road! Someone had to hear and save her, didn't they?! Where were all the fucking heroes that never seemed to die?!

"Where's the tape?"

"Fuck you," she whispered lowly, glaring hateful defiance at her calm tormentor. She hated it all the more for feeling certain that Doppelcaster was only doing exactly what _she_ would have done, in the same situation. Was it like hating yourself? No, Doppelcaster wasn't _really_ her, they were different people with different memories, she liked herself, she just hated Doppelcaster, that was all.

It went for her ribcage next, just below the right breast. She wasn't able to tell if any ribs actually broke, but the blow left a lingering pain that made it hurt intensely to breathe. She started taking shallow, tiny breaths, hoping it would help a little. It didn't, but she couldn't bring herself to go back to breathing normally, either. Her eyes fixed themselves on the floor, still stained with Gwendolyn blood, not wanting to look at the other her anymore.

"Where's the tape?"

She couldn't bring herself to reply, to whisper even the smallest bit of defiance. She let the silence be her defiance, and it stretched on for an eternity.

The bat dropped down to the floor with a skittering plunk. "Hmm. This isn't working," Doppelcaster observed. "Maybe something more... sophisticated."

Don't look, don't look, don't look, no matter how curious you are at what else Doppelcaster could possibly do, it was just stupid to look, stupid to anticipate, don't think, just drift in a blank void...

She felt a pointed tip of cold metal up against her right forefinger, just beneath the nail. She couldn't help but look and see the nail. And the bat posed at the head of the nail.

"Where's the tape?" Whoever would have thought that the most frightening thing she'd ever see would be the smile on her own face?

She tried to think of something to say, some excuse or explanation or rationale, but took too long, lips parted but no sound emerging.

The bat slammed down, and the nail was driven beneath her fingernail, causing it to split in two and be driven up out of the finger. The following scream that she expanded her abused chest to shriek out was almost as painful as the actual torture was. She couldn't bear to look at her mutilated finger and the blood pouring from it. Couldn't bear, but couldn't look away, either, eyes paralyzed, overcome in the moment of agony.

And then, as the torment seemed hellish and unbearable, her white knights swooped in, as if coming straight out of a book of fairy tales. Kevin, the texture and color of stone, smashed through the door like it was paper, and both Bens, untransformed, scrambled in after. She wasn't exactly sure what she yelled to them, her head foggy through the pain and shock. All that really stuck in her head was their expressions, running from 'I'm coming to save the day for I am a brave hero' through shock, horror, and disgust all the way to protective fury. She knew she had to look totally awful, and some little part of her was glad for that. It threw suspicion off her, and tweaked the protective strings that lurked in every male heart. The Bens threw themselves towards her, undoing her bonds, and Kevin threw himself at Doppelcaster, landing a nasty blow on the girl that knocked her out, as well as most of the way across the vehicle.

Never had Charmcaster been so glad to see her own ass get kicked.

Her mind churned out schemes and courses of action a'plenty, but her body couldn't be forced to follow them, and when freed she just collapsed against the older Ben's chest, one arm draped over the younger Ben, weeping hysterically. Hating herself for it, unable to stop it. She wasn't like this. She wasn't this weak!

Except for this one little moment in time, she was.

"You saved me," she mumbled, giggling at the absurdity of it all as tears ran down her face. She was genuinely grateful... or as close to grateful as she ever got, anyway. "You saved me!" Giggles dissolved into sobs.

"What the hell is going on? Who's this other chick?" Kevin asked, voicing everyone's questions. Through tear-blurred eyes, she looked at him, and saw him as totally befuddled and ready for manipulation as she could have ever possibly hoped. But she couldn't bring herself to do it. For the first time in her life she was too damn torn up to lie to someone to get them to do what she wanted. She had been broken to the point of being honest, and that was something so foreign to her that it felt just as nightmarish as the freaking torture itself.

She needed to go back and undo everything. Even if she could salvage it, she didn't want to. No way was she going to go through the pain of healing the knee and the fingernail, and have a fake tooth put in. No way!

She had to get one of the tapes.

Doppelcaster's was... hidden in a safe place, so she'd said.

That left the other one.

The one that had probably been dropped on the road during the truck debacle.

"I, I need to get back to where that truck almost hit me," she told the older Ben intensely. The older Ben was the nice one, the responsible one. Not like his impish younger self, and not like the thug. The older Ben would help her.

"But why-"

"_Please_, I can't explain, I just need to get back there!" she pleaded, clutching at his shirt. The desperation in her voice wasn't faked. Not even a little bit.

"But who's-"

"Fine!" she snapped, louder than she should have, aware that she was probably being irrational, like a stereotypical woman, the thing she most despised. "If you won't help me, I'll, I'll just go myself!" She tried to hobble off on her one good leg, clutching at the Rustbucket's walls and seats. It hurt like hell to move, but she kept going, secure in the knowledge that if she just got the damn tape, she could make everything right again. Rewind everything so none of this mattered.

They helped her, of course. They didn't have a choice, other than to let a seriously wounded and maimed person scramble around on her own and possibly get herself killed by aggravating her injuries. They kept asking questions that she didn't listen to closely. None of it mattered. Questions were irrelevant, any answers she could give were irrelevant. Her injuries, the other her, the fight, the weird behavior from Kevin, the grandfather and two Gwens she'd murdered. All dust in the wind. She just had to get the tape. Everything revolved around the tape.

She searched for half an hour before finding it half-buried in pale brown dirt, ants crawling all over it. They didn't understand why she'd looked for it, or bullied them into it. They didn't understand anything, and above all else, they didn't matter, so what they understood or didn't understand wasn't worth wasting a single thought on. All that mattered was that she'd fix this, rewind back to a time when things made sense. Back to when she wasn't scared of herself, and back when Kevin and the Bens were people she despised, not people she was glad to see. It was wrong to feel safe around your enemies. Utterly, sickeningly wrong.

She clutched the tape to her chest with almost religious reverence. Closed her eyes, in hopes of it calming her. But all she saw was the metal bat swinging at her over and over.

"Rewind," the word came out of her mouth, so gentle and shaky that even she barely heard it.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

"She seems a little more stressed than usual lately. I hope living with us isn't getting on her nerves."

Ben chuckled, relishing beyond the ability to express it the company of a grandfather he'd lost back in his own time. Just like the old guy, to be concerned for a villain's feelings, to wonder if _he'd_ done something wrong.

"Y'know, sometimes you're so considerate it's a little sickening," he joked, patting Grampa on the back. He joined in on watching Charmcaster clean the outside of the Rustbucket with a soapy rag. She _had_ been looking twitchy in the past few days, like she half-expected something to creep up on her and pounce. "I'm sure that's not it. You've been a terrific host, and the rest of us haven't been messing with her any. She's even bonded with the Gwens pretty well. Well, okay, so Kevin's been kinda standoffish, but that's just Kevin being Kevin."

"You'd think those two would have a lot to talk about, having so much in common," the old man mused aloud. "Or maybe she feels threatened by that for some reason. You should ask her, try to get to know her a little better."

"What? Why me?" Ben blurted, taken aback. He didn't _mind_ the villain's presence, exactly, acutely aware that he wasn't technically supposed to be around either, or his sister or Kevin... but so far he'd been more than happy to leave her alone and let the girls have their girl time. And it seemed to work okay. Besides, it felt weird, talking to a younger version of what amounted to his sister's arch-enemy. He would have been more comfortable if she tried to magically implode his head.

"Whatever brought you guys here isn't something we can fix quickly. And the curse on Charmcaster seems like it'll be beyond Gwen's abilities to get rid of for a while. You've done a good job not upsetting things, but I think it would be great if we could all relate to one another well enough to trust each other. Like one big extended family. There's still a barrier between you boys and Charmcaster, and between Kevin and the girls. It doesn't have to be that way."

Ben closed his eyes, smiling sadly. "That is so like you," he murmured. "Always hoping the best for people, like you always did for me and Gwen..." Unexpectedly, he felt his throat tighten, remembering the sacrifice the Grampa of his time made, and had to try hard not to sniffle. Ugh, he wasn't some stupid girl, this was ridiculous. He felt the (relatively) younger Grampa's big warm arm wrap around his shoulders.

"Not every bad guy's an obsessive killer like Vilgax. There's good in her, and I think you can help to bring that out."

Ben opened his eyes and looked up into Grampa's face with a sense of fond nostalgia. "Just like you and Gwen did for me, huh?"

"Everyone deserves a loving family."

"Right. Well, I'll give it a try. But don't blame me if something stupid happens, she'll probably just blow me off anyway."

"Heheh, let's just wait and see, Benjamin."

And then Grampa went off to keep the younger Ben and younger Gwen from breaking something over the latest meaningless squabble, their bickering voices clearly audible from far away. It was a strange feeling, to experience your past a second time, like this. Ben guessed that probably a ton of people would kill to get the kind of chance he'd been given. Especially with Grampa. He was older and smarter now, he had a better idea of what to do. And that was in large part thanks to Gwen and Grampa, God bless 'em. He felt a strong, irrational urge to share that feeling somehow with others, to share it with everyone that didn't know what it was like to be a better person because people gave a damn about you. Kevin, for all his faults, was starting to learn. So should Charmcaster.

She was just about done washing the Rustbucket, so he grabbed a towel and started to help her dry. "Hey. Nice of you to do that, Grampa'd meant for me and Gwen to do it, y'know."

Charmcaster didn't look at him, eyes fixed on the metal of the vehicle, face cool. From Kevin, he could have blown it off, but coming from a girl it was a little intimidating. "I just wanted something to keep myself occupied for a little bit. Being treated like a house guest gets boring after a while."

Was that all it was? Maybe they'd misread and made a big deal out of nothing. It wasn't like they knew Charmcaster _that_ well, after all. "Yeah, I know how it is. You get jittery when there's nothing to do. That's why I play superhero when I'm not playing video games," he joked with a smirk.

She glanced at him narrowly. "I look jittery to you?"

It was harder to talk when she was looking at him, so it was his turn to avoid her gaze and stare at the Rustbucket, now. "Well, yeah. I mean, you've been pacing around a lot lately, and looking around like you wish you had about sixteen more eyes. Which is overrated, by the way. Having a ton of eyes sucks if the air's dusty, trust me." He grinned, but the joke fell flat.

"I'm not used to being without my powers," she said after a quiet moment. "I've always had them and been able to tie people into pretzels if they messed with me. Now, if someone starts something, I... I don't know what to do..." Charmcaster's expression was stiff. Awkward. She was basically admitting she was helpless, wasn't she? That couldn't be something she was used to doing. _He_ certainly hadn't thought of her as helpless ever before. Anything but.

"Back when I took the watch off, for a while I was really freaked out, 'cause I kept wanting to do stuff I couldn't do anymore," he offered, hoping to find common ground. "For a few years I had to just stop being a hero, and it was hard. I'm grateful to have it back, even if there's a lot of stress and danger and stuff that comes with it. Don't worry, I'm good at protecting people. And if you need it, I'll protect you too."

She gave him a strange, thoughtful look. "Y'know, I think you will."

Suddenly he became aware that her hand against the Rustbucket had somehow covered over his. Flushing a little, he cleared his throat and shifted position, trying to keep his dignity intact.

"Yeah, well, just let me know if I can help, alright? I'm all about the heroing."

"Can you tell me why Kevin hates me?" she asked with uncharacteristic earnestness.

He started at the unexpected question. "I don't think he _hates_ you, he's just... uh... Kevin." Smooth. Real smooth. "I mean, he acts like a jerk sometimes, but he doesn't mean to, he's just... not real well-socialized," he tried to explain further. Though he didn't know why he was sticking up for Kevin in the first place. Kevin _had_ been kinda rude to Charmcaster the whole time they'd been here, after all. "I'll have a talk with him."

"No, that's okay. I don't care if he likes me or not." She tilted her head in a vaguely mischievous way. "Your opinion's more important to me. Since you're the one protecting me and all."

Whoa. Whoooaaa. Was she _flirting_ with him? That was seriously against the unspoken rules of hero business. And hooking up with her would be like a time travel paradox or something, wouldn't it?! He had to back out of this as quickly as possible. Even if she _was_ hot, in that special, slightly scary way that only evil people got to be hot. Ben wished his Omnitrix had an alien on it with really good charisma and talking-out-of-situations skills. Sadly, while some of his forms were smart, all of them were varying degrees of ugly, and none of them talked any better than he himself did.

Well, maybe he shouldn't panic so much. It was just flirting, right? Or maybe not even that. It didn't mean anything had to happen. He could just ignore it. And why was she looking at him like she knew exactly what he was thinking, and smirking about it? And why did he think that was sexy and annoying at the same time?!

"Uh, I'll have lots of help, so no need to act too grateful. Even Kevin'll lend a hand when it comes down to it. He's not that bad a guy when someone's butt is on the line." _So_ _long_ _as_ _the butt that's on the line doesn't belong to a person who trashed his car_, Ben mentally added. "He knows how to at least be a hero's sidekick and charge things like a bull," he joked with a grin. He couldn't diss Kevin too much in front of Gwen since they had that ridiculous passive mutual crush thing going on. This was a nice outlet. Charmcaster would be an open ear for Kevin-dissing, for sure. Was this what it was like to gossip behind someone's back? Whatever it was, it felt like a nice change of pace.

Charmcaster snorted, features twisting into something more skeptical and less pretty. But only a little less. "He's not even sidekick material. Don't kid yourself, Ben, he's not on our level. He's the kinda person who thinks he's a good hero, or a good bad guy... whichever side of the fence he's on at the time... but really, he's just an animal. He'll live by his gut and die by his gut. He probably wouldn't even hang around you except he wants to nail your cousin."

"He does not want to nail her," Ben spluttered, totally disgusted by the concept, and all the more so because it didn't seem too unlikely. "He respects her, and she's too good for him, anyway!"

"Oh, grow up, Ben. Even when you time travel from the future you're still such a kid."

It felt incredibly unfair, to have gone through everything he'd gone through, and done all the things he'd done, and still wind up being condescended by a villain who was younger than he was. He was pretty sure she was younger, anyway! Wasn't she only, like, fourteen? Maybe fifteen? Okay, so he had no idea, but _still_. She had no right to talk to him like that!

"I _am_ grown up," he growled coldly, stepping closer. Willing her to believe it with all his might.

"Prove it, then," she replied mockingly, lips curled and eyebrows cocked, looking more like a villainess than ever.

He wasn't entirely sure why this made him kiss her.

It could have had something to do with the fact that she had her hand on his ass.

--

Charmcaster watched from afar, and pondered her moves. She'd long since decided it would be best to wait for her younger, more inexperienced self to try and cause chaos amongst the Tennysons again before she became aggressive. There were advantages to being passive. She wouldn't be a target... how could she be, when only her other self even suspected she existed here, and couldn't enlighten anyone about the suspicion? Her other self would try to take down the Tennysons, as usual, and probably make a mistake. The same kinds of stupid mistakes _she_ had made, before she'd gone through enough rewinds to figure out most of the tricks. All eyes would be on the younger Charmcaster, and then she could finish them all off with one grand stroke.

She'd almost done it, last time. Should have taken her weaker self off to a more private place for interrogation, that'd been the only slip up. This time, she'd do it different. She'd grab the other Charmcaster and haul ass to somewhere where they wouldn't be rudely interrupted. Yes, that would work just fine.

The older Ben was an interesting variable to consider. Her weaker self hung around him a _lot_ this time. It occurred to her that her other self was likely the same twin as the one from the immediately previous loop. The one she'd, heh, tortured ever so gently. That version of her had reason to be paranoid of assault. That version of her seemed to be, if she didn't miss her guess, hanging around someone who would protect her if things got hairy.

Stupid heroes.

No.

Stupid _boys_, and their chivalrous egos and penis-dominated brains.

It pained her, really, to see her other self making such obvious mistakes. Didn't the other her know that manipulating people by their crotches was something that could backfire really easily? One little drama blowup at the wrong moment and all sorts of plans could get FUBARed. No, it was better to be 'friends.' Nice, but not close. Too close, too personal, and emotions got involved. Making the Tennysons feel protective out of a sense of impersonal, heroic duty was much better, she'd long ago figured out. After many, many attempts otherwise.

Nothing was more depressing than watching yourself go through the same mistakes you'd already gone through in the past, and being unable to do anything about it. Even if you _were_ planning on killing that second yourself in the end, anyway.

More and more, thoughts of unmitigated violence filled her head as the idea of faking emotional closeness with the Tennyson family filled her with disgust that boiled like lava. But she held back. She'd rushed and failed enough times to know that impatience didn't help. You had to be quiet. You had to be careful. You had to wait for just the right moment.

Then she'd kill them all.

The moment came, but not in the way she expected.

She'd taken a break from her obsessive spying to take a leak, and when she got back to her perimeter watching position, she found the Tennyson camp in the middle of loud, angry, emotional chaos.

Apparently the older Ben and Gwen were both dead? How, exactly, was uncertain, but it hadn't been pretty. Okay, so the other Charmcaster had made her move, just not very subtly. _Incredibly_ not subtly, apparently, as Kevin was shouting Charmcaster-directed accusations of murder. There was evidence, some kind of linking proof that'd been left behind at the scene. Strong enough that big ol' Santa-esque 'Grampa' was agreeing to restrain the other Charmcaster, tie her up. There was even some talk of calling the police in the morning. God, her other self had really been _such_ a stupid bitch this time, it was just plain embarrassing. Things like this reflected on her own rep!

Great. Well, annoying as it was, it didn't change the plan any. She'd just walk in, grab the tied up idiot, run, interrogate and finish her off, and then take care of the rest of the morons. It was really a pity her other self hadn't managed to kill all of them. She was going to have to clean up the idiot's sloppy planning. But then, come to think of it, there hadn't been a single loop so far where any version of her had been able to kill _all_ the Tennysons and come out of it intact. They were freaking cockroaches. Just cockroaches, with unrealistic morals and a sickening family atmosphere.

She waited till it was late and dark and everyone was asleep. The grandfather and Kevin tried not to, probably under some foolish idea of protecting the kids, but the former was old and the later was just an undisciplined punk. By one am, there was no one to see Charmcaster creep delicately around the camp site, towards the other, stupider her who had botched things so badly. Tied with military thoroughness to a bench, slumped, looking like a pig ready for slaughter. How appropriate. She stepped in front of her prey...

And froze, seeing two eyes wide open and alert, staring at her.

More importantly, she saw the tiny but still potentially dangerous flare gun. Her other self had grabbed it earlier and somehow managed to hang on to it despite all the commotion, and it was now pointed in a direction that wasn't conducive to her own good health.

"One step forward, and I shoot this thing point blank into your face," the other Charmcaster said quietly, tone blank. "One step back, and I scream and everyone comes running to see what's going on."

It would have been funny, except she knew that a flare gun at this range was not something to laugh at. Nor did she want herself revealed at this point in time due to the idiocy of a less intelligent duplicate. She wasn't sure she could gag the bitch _and_ grab the flare gun in time. Fuck.

"So you don't want me getting to you or leaving. What else is there?" she asked, matching the calm, soft voice of her idiot double.

"Talk," the other said confidently.

"Talk?"

"Yeah. Let's talk."

This wasn't so bad. She could afford to humor the other Charmcaster, for now. No one was around to spoil things, and playing along would help keep things quiet. "Okay," she agreed amiably. "Whatcha wanna talk about?"

"I think we should work together," the tied up Charmcaster proposed unexpectedly.

Huh. Weird. The other Charmcasters had mostly just tried to kill off their rivals, like _she_ had. It'd always seemed the only logical course of action before. This was something new to think about.

"Keep going," she urged her double, wanting details.

"It's always the damn Tennysons that mess things up, isn't it? Too many obstacles, too many superpowers, too many variables in the freaking equation. It doesn't make any sense to go around killing each other off when we have the same goals and there's still all this clutter around, right?"

"You're proposing a truce taking priority of targets into account."

"Yeah. We get together, take out the Tennysons... and Kevin, if he's any trouble. Only _after_ that, do we have the 'there can be only one' knock down drag out or however you say it fight. What do you think?"

It did seem reasonable at first glance. The Tennysons _were_ the main problem, after all. Sure, they'd both be ready to backstab each other at a moment's notice, but she was personally confident in the superiority of her evil treacherous bitch skills. "I think you were stupid to let yourself get tied up," she stalled, thinking it over, trying to spot any hidden weak points in the suggested strategy. Nothing that wasn't obvious and easily accounted for. "On the other hand, I do have to give you kudos for the flare gun," she admitted, smirking. "Didn't expect it or I would've come from behind and knocked you out. So, they seem to be asleep at the moment. How about I untie you and we take them out before they wake up enough to make things difficult?"

"Sounds good."

"But first, you drop the flare gun."

The other Charmcaster stared silently. There was without a doubt a nice black mass of broiling hate behind that blank face. It was difficult not to snicker. Ah, she remembered being that naïve, that emotionally involved. Many, many rewinds ago.

"I'm showing you my trust by untying you," she pointed out. "You have to show trust by dropping your weapon while I'm doing it. Okay?"

The other Charmcaster balked, but after about a minute of glaring, gave in, realizing there was no other way to get free. "Fine."

The flare gun fell to the ground with a barely audible thud.

The immediate temptation was to grab the flare gun and fuck up the duplicate Charmcaster with it as sweetly appropriate revenge, but the urge was repressed. Wait, watch, play it safe. This wasn't the moment. The Tennysons were more important.

"By the way, Doppelcaster-"

Despite herself, Charmcaster broke into laughter before catching herself, hand over her mouth. "What did you just call me? Doppelcaster?"

"Yeah. Like doppelganger, you know?"

"God, that's just lame!" _She'd_ never thought up nicknames for any of the duplicates before! This other her really was a loser. Couldn't _possibly_ be a threat.

"I thought it was clever," the other Charmcaster grumbled. "Anyway. That was pretty sneaky, killing them off and then letting me take the rap. Smart. They couldn't have suspected it."

Charmcaster blinked. "Eh? What're you talking about? Didn't _you_ kill them?"

The other Charmcaster blinked in turn. "No. Why the hell would I kill the older Ben, I needed him to keep me safe from _you_."

They stared at each other in silence.

"Well, if _you_ didn't kill them..."

"...and _you_ didn't kill them, either..."

"...who the hell did?" they finished simultaneously.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Things weren't going the way he'd planned it. Instead of doing whatever she did to go back in time and fix things, she'd teamed up with the other one! Shit. Not good. He wouldn't have thought it possible, after the all the torture and crap he'd seen one of them do to the other one, but apparently it wasn't in Charmcaster's nature to let a grudge get in the way of offing heroes. Knowing which one had done the torture and which one had been the victim would have made him feel a little better, although it didn't really matter, did it? They were both evil, weren't they? Probably. Anyway, he wasn't gonna take any more chances. He had to fix this, no matter what it took. If he _couldn't_ get one of them to do the time jump thingy... he didn't even want to think about it.

He'd deliberately faked sleep as isolated from the kids and their grandpa as he could get and still be in the Rustbucket, close to a window that he'd left open. Partially so he could get a clear view of the tied up Charmcaster, and partially in case he needed to move quickly. Like now, with two Charmcasters creeping up to him with almost definitely lethal intent.

An attempt at sliding out of the window with graceful deadliness turned into a more dorky and undignified crawl-climb-hop maneuver, but he got out, and he got out quickly and quietly enough that he managed to get a stony hand around each girl's neck, discouraging further noise, without waking anyone up.

"Listen up. You're gonna talk in whispers, from now on, or I will break your freakin' necks," Kevin told them coldly.

Eyes wide with unhappy surprise, they nodded frantically, and he relaxed his grip on their throats... just a little.

"Y-you were faking," one of them croaked.

"Yeah, like I was gonna count sheep while you were still around. Get real. I'm not as easy to sucker punch as the Tennyson boy scouts. But enough chit chat. Tell me how you fucking do it."

"Do what?" the other one asked, calming down a bit quicker than the first Charmcaster. He didn't like the narrow searching look she was giving him, like an insect she could pin on paper if she found the right needle for the job.

He ground his teeth, angry that he was having to spell it out for them. The more time he spent talking, the more time it gave them to think of ways _not_ to go back in time. What he wanted was to bully them into doing what had to get done before they could come up with a way to weasel out of it. "Tell me how you make time go backwards so you undo things that've happened. I _thought_ you were gonna do that as soon as I framed you, that's why I offed Ben and Gwen in the first place, so I could figure out how you did it!"

The two identical Charmcasters stared goggled-eyed, and then broke into laughter. Terrified that they'd wake the others and enraged that they for some reason found this _funny_, he shut them up by squeezing their necks hard enough to leave bruises.

"It was _s'posed_ to be simple," he growled hatefully. "I frame you, you end up in a no-win situation, and then you mess with time like you _always_ do when there's no way out. Then I woulda _known_ how you do it without you _knowin'_ that I knew, and been able to stop you from doing it ever again! But then that second you comes along again and kicks over my fucking plan. Bullshit. So, that plan's scrapped. New plan, you both tell me what I wanna know and then do the time jump. Then when we're on new timeline where my pals ain't wormfood, I'm gonna stop you both from pulling this crap ever again. And don't get all snippy and ask what happens if you don't. 'Cause you both know what'll fuckin' happen. Baseball bats and nails ain't shit compared to what I'll do to you both for making me do what I had to do to lure you into makin' a move." The last sentence came out as a harsh guttural sound, almost a snarl, spittle flying and his face twisted up. He couldn't help it. He'd just done what he'd had to do, but... he remembered, he'd never, ever forget. Oh, he'd done similar things before. But not to friends. Not to girls he'd liked or guys he'd fought side by side with. This was different. It was supposed to have been simple, but it was complicated now. So complicated. He'd kept telling himself it didn't matter because it would all be reversed anyway, but that didn't make the screaming sting of the memories go away. Worse, _way_ worse, than the ones of them dying at Charmcaster's hands. He felt guilty, to the point where it was eating him alive on the inside, and he had to do something to make it all better or he knew he'd go crazy.

"God, and some people think _we're_ psychos," one Charmcaster mumbled, snickering quietly.

"I know, right?" the other said, the two of them apparently on the same thought track. "Kevin, you are such an incredible loser."

"Shut your goddamn mouth while you still have one, you murdering bitch."

"Oh, Kevy Kevy Kevy, tch tch tch... so you started to remember some loops, that's pretty amazing. But what you did with those memories is pretty sad. Pathetic, really."

"Pathetic's totally the right word. You get off on calling _us_ murderers, that's so full of delusion it's just cute. Maybe we're bad guys, Kevy, but we don't kill people we actually _like_. You knocked off your own friends just to try and push us in a corner? Really pathetic. Pa-the-tic."

They were really creeping him out, even though there wasn't any way they could really hurt him. He thought. Between their unblinking eyes and their snow-white hair he felt like he was being tried before a court of ghosts. "It was the only way I could think of to see you do the time jump thing without you knowing I'd seen it an' knowing I remembered. If you knew, then you'd be able to plan how to keep me from stopping you the next time around." He tried to sound cold and indifferent, but even to his ears, it sounded like a desperate, pleading justification.

"And you went through aaaaall that just to keep up the stealth, but wind up blowing it all now because your widdle pwan didn't work out the way it was s'posed to. Awww. What a waste."

"I can still kill one of you and still have one leftover to do the time crap," he threatened. "Don't mess with me, bitch."

"Unless only one of us can actually do that, and you don't figure out which one," the other Charmcaster pointed out.

"Bull," he snapped immediately, wanting to bare his teeth like the animal he felt like. "You're just saying that to mess with my head."

"Maybe, the first one went on, "but you can't know either way." She giggled. "You crack me up, Kevy." She spared a glance for her double. "_Us_ up."

"No need to get nasty, I'd be happy to show you just how I hop back in time," the other said unexpectedly and calmly. Unexpected for the _other_ Charmcaster too, who was definitely looking askance at her double. "But let's just clear up something first." Her eyes narrowed. "I don't like you thinking you're any better than us. It's insulting, you know? So before we rewind and get to a proper showdown, let's get some things straight."

"Like what?" His tongue felt wooden in his mouth. He had no reason to believe anything they said voluntarily, and less even reason to care. And yet, somehow, he felt like a part of him understood them, and the other way around too. That little sneaky whispering predatory part of him that had never really died off. Only curled up quietly and dozed, waiting for a chance to get what it wanted without messing with the _other_ things he'd wanted.

"You're not the brightest bulb in the box, Kev, but you could've thought up something better. If you'd really wanted to. If you'd really tried to. But instead you just ran with the first scheme that came to mind. That _was_ the first one, wasn't it?" It would've sounded accusing, coming from a normal person. From a Charmcaster, it sounded almost proud. "Your instinctive response to any crap that gets in your way is... get rid of it. Right? Why should anything stand in _your_ way, you're Kevin 11, way more badass than all the rest. So when you came to a problem you couldn't smash directly, you smashed a related factor. Because you'd wanted to do that all along, anyway." She leaned closer, eyes unblinking, face insistent. "Admit it. You didn't kill them because it was a way to get to us. That was just a side effect. A good excuse. You killed them because you wanted to, you've wanted to for God knows how long now. And you saw your chance to have your cake and eat it too... you'd satisfy your pride and prove your superiority to them both once and for all, and then do a time jump and be friends with them again. Isn't that what you _really_ wanted out of it? To be able to really let go and satisfy both impulses? To feel her warm blood on your hands one moment, and then maybe her lips on yours the next? Right?"

His insides were like burning, seething oil, bubbling up and making him feel hot and dizzy. She was talking shit, absolute shit, he didn't want, he'd _never_ wanted... except he _had_, and he'd never really stopped wanting it, had he? The little brat had gotten in his way so many times! If Ben had just given him the watch in the first place, all that power could have been his and he'd have been able to live any life he'd wanted, instead of scrounging like a rat for food and money as a criminal and then, later, a freakshow of a monster. It'd _all_ been Ben's fault. Everything had changed when they'd met! And then, Gwen... he couldn't keep his eyes from her, and he hated himself for that. He wanted to be in control of his own life, and her having that power over him had been disgusting. And she didn't understand, neither of them did, they hadn't lived the life he had, they hadn't had to fend for themselves! They'd always had each other! And he hadn't had anyone. Until he'd had them, something like friends. But he didn't like being their friends. It was that dependency again. And they'd had this stupid sibling vibe between them that he couldn't break into. Why had they been so _nice_? Why had they been so goddamn... _themselves_? And why had that made him hate them so much, without even realizing it except when he was trying to sleep at night, and couldn't think about anything else?

"Fine," he hissed, a growling whisper that seemed to barely leave his mouth. "Fine. Yeah, I liked it. Maybe I coulda thought of something else to do. But I didn't. I killed 'em, and I _liked_ it, and that's why..."

"Why what?" one of the Charmcasters prompted.

_That's_ _why_ _I_ _have_ _to_ _fix_ _it,_ he would have said. Except that Max Tennyson had snuck up behind him somehow, impossibly sneaky for a fat old man, and was currently aiming what looked like an alien tech laser-rifle at his chest.

Shit.

"Old man, look, it's not what it-"

"I don't know why there's two Charmcasters here," old man Tennyson said with a kind of slow, cold anger that struck some dread into even Kevin's hard heart, "and I don't know what you're trying to say to me. But what I do know is that I just heard you confess to murdering my grandkids."

Kevin swallowed, his throat feeling painfully constricted. "Please, man, just let me-"

"Get back to your normal form, back exactly one pace away from the girls, and sit down with your hands behind your back."

It was a tone that didn't take arguing with, so Kevin did what the guy said, slowly, trying to think of ways to make things better. He had to fix this. He'd messed it up, he had to fix it... if only the stupid girls would do their time crap already!

"Do it now," he demanded, glaring at them. "Quit waitin' around and watchin' me squirm, just do the time rewind thing now!"

They looked back at him with very good impressions of being confused and scared, inching their way over to Tennyson, who allowed it. Apparently the old coot didn't think they were dangerous now that it was out that they hadn't been the killers. Big mistake. This wasn't looking good at all.

"What are you even talking about?" one asked, seemingly bewildered.

"Look, psycho, if we could use magic we wouldn't be letting you thug it up around us," the other snapped.

Kevin grit his teeth. "It's too late to play innocent, you little-"

"Stop talking," Tennyson cut in. "I'll deal with them later. Right now, you're going to take a little nap... thank me for having the foresight to grab a gun with a stun setting. You deserve worse."

The contraption whirred and hummed as it started to power up for a blast of some kind of energy or other. At that sound, all of Kevin's survival instincts went on full alert, screaming at him. They were old, old instincts... old friends, way older than Ben or Gwen. They'd been with him from the start and kept him safe up till now, and he wasn't gonna stop listening to them now. The whispers that told him to survive, to keep going, to escape and run and do whatever it took to stay alive. Whatever it took. Living was the priority, you couldn't do anything unless you were alive first. No matter what other messed up crap was going on, _that_, at least, was still true.

He knew talking wasn't gonna work, but he tried anyway, for the morality of the thing. He was desperately intense with the desire to resolve things without punching, for once. Maybe Ben and Gwen had rubbed off on him a little after all.

"Tennyson, I'm tellin' you those two are freaking evil and they're gonna kill you if you let them!" The words came in a rush, a jumble. He barely knew what they were. "I'm not gonna let them get me too, so there's no way I'm gonna let you knock me out, understand?!"

He saw Tennyson's finger move on the trigger as if in slow motion. Both Charmcasters were behind the old man now, one at each shoulder, wearing the most fucking eerie identical smiles he'd ever seen. One of them even had the freaking gall to _finger-wave_ at him!

"Goddammit, Tennyson..." he hissed.

There wasn't any more time to weigh options, or try to negotiate.

Survival came first.

Everything else, after.

So Kevin 11 did what he did best. He flung himself up, turned into stone, and commenced with some straightforward violence. His form wasn't as good as it usually was, though. He was already rewinding, in a way... time itself hadn't jumped back, sure. But his mind was rewinding constantly, every second, to those moments when he'd killed them, and enjoyed it, and hated himself for enjoying it, body trembling and humming hot with horror and satisfied bloodlust.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Between confused woken up superpowered children, a couple lookalikes, a grandfather with a lasergun, and a mutant thug with a chip on his shoulder, things were pretty chaotic. Which was good. Good for Charmcaster. She needed the chaos to give her the time to _think_.

Why had Kevin started remembering things from past rewinds?! It'd taken all her self-control not to freak out over that, not wanting to show weakness in front of her crazy sadist duplicate. And if Kevin could remember, could the others start remembering, too? Wouldn't that nullify the entire advantage of rewinding time if the Tennysons started recalling what she did each time and reacted appropriately? Of course, Kevin wasn't supposed to be here anyway, technically. No more than the older Gwen and Ben Tennyson were supposed to have been around. Maybe that was why Doppelcaster insisted on culling such extraneous elements quickly and mercilessly, quite aside from the issue of bloating the laundry list of victims, enemies, and bystanders up to an unmanageable size. Who knew what else could go wrong. She didn't know, but she could guess. Lots and lots of unpleasant, scary guesses.

Things were getting out of control, and she had to take drastic steps to get things back in order, or she'd suffer for it. The brute currently trying to kneecap her into forcing her to initiate a rewind was proof enough of that. Stupid bastard. Fortunately the grandfather was a good enough shot that Kevin was kept on the defensive, and even without her powers Charmcaster was able to play the keep away game well enough to manage.

But her fat, sweaty protector couldn't keep it up for long. Not as long as Kevin, anyway. He _was_ old, after all. Which was why she was incredibly glad for Ben to 'go hero,' as he put it, and join in the fray with zest. This wouldn't be the first time for Ben to have saved her bacon. Both the Bens had been the ones to fling themselves towards her, so eager to help her out, after seeing what the psycho Doppelcaster'd done to her with the bat. And even Gwen had saved her... from Kevin, once. Kevin wasn't like them. He pretended to be. But he was just an animal. All he did was hit things.

The Tennysons were heroes, real ones, as ridiculous as the notion sounded in her head. And she had to take full advantage of that. Get them on her side, and get her enemies... the ones who posed a real threat to her... on the other side. So her protectors proved to be hard to kill once she had no more use for 'em, well, heroes were good at surviving, weren't they? She couldn't blame them for it anymore. She'd just use their instincts to her advantage from now on.

And the first thing she was going to do was shove that damn sicko clone across the line in the sand. She hoped the grandfather wouldn't remember her being chummy with Doppelcaster just a few moments ago. He _had_ had a lot to distract him.

"She's a limax," she blurted out with frantic conviction, the first semi-plausible line to come to mind. "They're shapeshifting aliens who can make themselves look like other people! She's in it with Kevin, I think, he's a limax too for all I know!"

Ben and the grandfather were too engrossed in fighting to pay much attention. Typical male machismo. But Gwen, at least, paused in her (surprisingly, and sickeningly from Charmcaster's point of view, skilled) spellcasting to take in the rushed words, process them and respond intelligently.

"Well, that would explain a lot! But, but how do I know _you're_ not the limax?!"

Dammit. Ten year olds weren't supposed to be suspicious! Her brain was scrambling for answers and coming up with zip. It was too damn hard to think when you were in the middle of a mini war zone!

Doppelcaster looked incredulous and insulted. "You can't be serious. After all that effort to form a truce and you want to pull this _now_? Right now, before we've even taken the rest of them out?"

It was the kind of response borne out of pure disbelief and wounded pride. Doppelcaster didn't care how it sounded to the others, because she was so freaking jaded. Charmcaster saw her advantage, and sprung into action. Keep up the mask. Keep on pretending. She was back to not being the psycho killer, as far as Gwen knew, and now she just had to push it a little further.

"What makes you think I wanna take them out?!" she snapped, faking outrage. A little sentiment masked in wounded villainous pride, that was the ticket. All fake, lies inside lies. "Aside from the fact that I'd never have to eat that old man's gross cooking again! I'm a sorceress, not a serial killer, you freak! And how insane do you have to be to think I'd just work with you on anything when you fucking _tortured_ me?!" That last line was a huge risk, a gamble based on the hope that Doppelcaster really was as apathetic to playacting as the nice girl as she appeared to be. The double had no reason to fall for it except for pure apathy, it was such obvious bait. Doppelcaster would hopefully be sloppy because she was used to rewinding a million times, the consequences of any one loop irrelevant. Charmcaster, meanwhile, hadn't grown nearly so cynical, and was willing to take any one situation and run with it till she squeezed out every last drop of possible advantage, hoping each time it would be the last time she'd need to do so.

The gamble paid off.

"You have _got_ to look at the big picture," Doppelcaster huffed, crossing her arms, almost lecturing. "Are you going to throw away any real chance of getting the Tennysons offed just because you're still pissed about something I did that didn't even leave a mark on you? So I tortured you, so what? We've got bigger issues to deal with!"

That was all it took to convince Gwen, who directed her next spell at Doppelcaster, a simple telekinesis that sent the double flying through the air to land a couple dozen feet away on her ass, with a pleasing lack of dignity. Charmcaster hummed hotly inside with triumphant satisfaction, and the smoldering fire of a hatred barely fed. She wouldn't be content until she saw that bitch dead. Deader than the Tennysons had ever been. How _dare_ her double do such horrible things to her, and then act like it didn't even matter! That insane bitch! _She_ would never act like that, if she had to torture herself... she was sure!

Her thought stream was broken by Gwen screaming. In all the commotion Kevin had accidentally sideswiped her and she'd fallen in a bad way, twisting her leg to an unnatural angle. Kevin immediately tried to _apologize_ while still dodging attacks from and trying to subdue Ben in 'orange furry eyeless monster' mode and the grandfather's laser! It struck Charmcaster as so desperately pathetic and funny that her ribs ached holding the laughter in. Except that, for some reason, watching the kid in pain was somehow dampening the humor. Maybe because it was old hat, done so many times before. No longer fresh or original. That was it.

Trying to think of the exact right way to phrase a suggestion that would let her take the kid away and put her out of their mutual misery while the battle royale commenced, the grandfather gave her a hand, as usual. Such a nice, helpful guy. Nauseating, really.

"Charmcaster, I don't know which side you're on in all this mess, but if you've ever given a darn about anything in your life, I want you to take Gwen and get her out of here before she gets hurt even more! Remember you need her to break the curse!"

_Give_ _a_ _darn?_ Charmcaster immediately thought, snorting. Who _talked_ like that? Whitebread pussy. He'd put his grandkids into mortal peril but not swear in front of them. There was a man with serious issues.

Oh well. There was that saying about gifts and horse mouths...

Ignoring the kid's bravely ridiculous insistences that she could still help, and Kevin's babble about how letting Gwen go off with _either_ Charmcaster was probably a death sentence, she simply picked Gwen up like a stack of library books and hauled ass out of the fight club. Doppelcaster made to follow, but was stopped almost literally dead by orange-and-fuzzy-Ben, whose bashing charge seemed not half as deadly as all the alien slobber.

Oh yeah, things were totally going her way now.

Coincidences had _had_ to run in her favor eventually, right? Right. The heroes had gotten lucky, and Kevin had kept messing things up, but now Kevin was the bad guy, and the heroes' luck had run out. It was like gambling. Eventually, if you kept putting in freaking quarters, you'd get those three apples in a row. Or whatever. She'd never actually bothered to do anything but suck the change out of slot, arcade, and vending machines with magic before. Crime so totally paid.

Charmcaster's glee was such that she barely paid attention to where she was going, running more or less aimlessly and ducking behind the nearest shelter when she could no longer hear the sounds of the scuffle. Past what little civilization was around the van's parking spot, past the truck stop and the bathrooms and the random truckers smoking and talking to themselves with vague concern about seeing what the hell was going on around the Rustbucket, into the trees, till the highway and the buildings and the people were all gone. Then it was just her, and Gwen, and plenty of trees and soft brown earth speckled with yellowish grass that seemed too lazy to grow properly.

"Are you going to stop _now_? Jeez!" Gwen said for what had to be the tenth time. Charmcaster was about to unceremoniously drop the ungrateful brat, but found that the earth under their feet was dropping both of _them_ instead!

They fell a long way, way too far for a simple natural sinkhole or anything like that. She landed on her ass in a pile of loose dirt of seemingly endless depth, and Gwen fell on top of her, sprawling. After grinding her teeth in rage and disgust, Charmcaster very slowly and deliberately picked a worm off her shoulder and flicked it aside.

"Get off me," she said in a no-nonsense tone of voice, looking around as Gwen stumbled to one side. It helped that the kid mumbled a few shaky words to light up the air around them with arcane sparkles.

Charmcaster hated saying the obvious, but she was so taken by disbelieving surprise she couldn't help herself this time. "We're in a freaking _tunnel_ _system_." They'd fallen down far enough that sunlight was only a dim jagged hole above them. The fall would have certainly injured or killed them if there hadn't been so much dirt to pad the landing. There were levels and levels of tunnels and bridges going off in every direction, densely packed except for the newly-dug earth scattered on the floors.

"It's like a bug warren or something," Gwen put in. "Have you ever seen how they do molds of ant nests? They look just like this, only not so big."

Charmcaster snorted. "Animal Planet much?"

"Well, excuse me for enjoying learning!"

"Nothing wrong with it, but you learn the wrong things."

"Yeah, like you know anything worth sharing, Miss I Can't Do Anything Without My Magic." Her nose was practically in the air, which was only furthering her silly posture, given the contortion of her body and limbs she had to manage to keep the broken leg from hurting too much.

Ooh, that was a low blow. Now Gwen was treating her like that pintsize idiot _Ben_. _That_ was crossing a line that would not be tolerated. It was tempting to strangle the little girl right there and be done with it, but that wasn't a prudent course of action. Gwen's magic was the easiest and surest way to get aboveground again.

"I can't believe Grampa made you take me out of the fight just because I got a little hurt. It doesn't hurt _that_ bad," Gwen went on, trying to move her bad leg a little and immediately wincing hard, obviously trying not to cry. She kept up the cute brave facade anyway. "What if they _need_ me? I don't need to stand up to cast spells! Grampa almost never makes me stay out of stuff like this!"

"Maybe he should do it more often," Charmcaster put in, not because she really cared (she obviously didn't), but because she felt the need to inject a sane point of view. "Who lets little kids fight badasses like the Forever Knights and moi? If he cared a little more about your safety and a little less about continuing his dorky secret agent hero man legacy he'd probably have sent you guys home a long time ago."

Gwen's face went oddly still and solemn, a strangely adult expression on her rounded, youthful face. "You take that back."

"Yeah, whatever..."

And then just like that, Gwen went back to acting her age again, all bluster and fury, a screaming polecat. "You take that back now! I mean it! Grampa loves us and doesn't care about his stupid legacy, and maybe you don't know what love is like because you've never had anyone who loved you, but I do, so take it back!"

Charmcaster raised her hands in a surrendering gesture, surprised at the sudden venom. Sigh. These kids were... weird. For kids. It was hard to tell just _how_ weird, though. "Okay, okay, jeez, I take it back. Don't bust a gasket. Now, d'you think you can-"

There was a noticeable... _scuttling_... sound nearby. And Charmcaster didn't like things that scuttled. Especially when it sounded like lots and lots of them. So she shut up, motioned to Gwen to turn off the magic light, and hid behind the pile of dirt up against a wall. Reflexively, she grabbed Gwen and gently tugged her down next to her. She wasn't sure why the motion came so naturally. It wasn't like they were friends, or that she wished anything other than instantaneous, horrible death on Gwen, or anything. So what if she remembering being the kid's friend in a jillion rewinds by now, she remembered kicking that friendship to the curb with a big sloppy bucket of murder just as many times, too. The cake was a lie, trala.

The scuttling was heralded with a dim, rather pretty phosphorescent glow as it got closer. Eyes just barely picking from the side of the dirt pile, Charmcaster saw an incredibly huge swarm of bugs creeping around. Bulked together in unnaturally organized columns, countless species. Spiders, termites, ants, roaches, mantises, pill bugs, caterpillars, grasshoppers, scorpions. And tons more she didn't know or care enough about bugs to identify. The illumination was from fireflies that hovered a few feet above the ground formations, organized into neat little spheres, along with other fliers like dragonflies and moths. And overseeing this minuscule army, of course, was a certain blue-skinned freak of her acquaintance.

_Clancy_.

What the hell was _he_ doing here?! Making tunnels and crap, no less? She hadn't alerted him... had she? Thinking back frantically, piecing together dates and old actions in other loops, she realized she hadn't. No, she'd landed in this particular continuity _before_ any of the dates she'd contacted Clancy in past continuities, and hadn't contacted him at all this time. And she'd certainly never, ever told him to do anything like _this_, anyway.

Clancy looked up, noticed the hole, and frowned. "We spy a structural flaw... this _must_ be taken care of, our cover cannot be blown until the full structure has been completed!"

At his command, insects swarmed upwards, patching up the hole neatly until there was nothing left of it. The bug man nodded in satisfaction.

"Good, good. Can't slack off now... almost through with our part in bringing those meddlesome kids and their grandfather down," he muttered with dark pleasure, following his mass of tiny troops onwards and out of sight. He kept on mumbling, and Charmcaster strained to hear. "Aboveground assault starts tomorrow after all, need to make sure to kill the right double... since the other one promised us so very many tasty arthropod growth potions once our job was complete... soon enough, soon enough..." His voice was a haunting, ominous echo through the tunnel as it faded away into inaudibility. Apparently not a man much used to company, so he talked to himself... something that surprised Charmcaster not at all.

Doppelcaster. Of course. That bitch. Well, it was fitting, of course. Doppelcaster had had her ace card up her sleeve all the time, so naturally she'd been fine with taking a risk with that laughable truce that neither of them had intended on keeping longer than was convenient. With Clancy on Doppelcaster's side, that complicated things. Unless she could pretend to be Doppelcaster. But no, there was probably some sort of password or something between the two of them to prevent that. It was just the sort of thing _she_ would have done, after all.

Damn evil twin!

Well, equally evil twin, anyway.

"So," Gwen whispered, so tiny it was hard to hear even when being right next to the girl, "the limax are working with bug guy now? Is this another teamup like the Forever Knights thing?"

"How should I know?" she whispered back. "I'm not in on any of this, unless you count being just another target, like you Tennyson weirdos. Lucky me." She looked around in the darkness vainly but nervously, suddenly aware of how many hiding places there were for bugs, whether the lights were on or off. "Could he be listening to us right now? With, like, spy bugs, or something like that?" She cursed herself for not getting a better handle on Clancy and really exploring his full potential as bugomancer or whatever you'd call it. She just hadn't ever really thought of him as a threat before. He'd always seemed like an easy tool to use, nothing more. Now that condescension was turning around and biting her butt. Other than controlling bugs with his mind he had no idea what he was truly capable of.

"I don't know. We never figured out if he sees everything they see, or if they have to 'tell' him things, or what. But if he was listening right now, we'd be dead, wouldn't we?"

Logical assumption. Might as well assume it was safe since there were no indications to the contrary, and get out of here with all due speed. "Yeah, probably. Look, can you blow up the ceiling and float us out of here before we get any more problems than we need? I'm sure your grandpa'd be delighted to hear you got eaten by bugs while I was trying to keep you safe."

"Heh, yeah. I mean, I can probably at least- AHHHH!"

"What is it?!" Charmcaster yelled more loudly than was smart, freaked and worried that her one safe way out besides a rewind was getting hurt. Oh well, after a piercing shriek like Gwen's, their cover was blown anyway, if anyone was nearby to hear.

"I think a cockroach crawled in my mouth!"  
Charmcaster almost deflated with relief, and then immediately bristled back up again with irritation. "You _think_?"

"Well, it _felt_ like a roach... eww, I can still _taste_ it..." Gwen lit up the area with faintly sparkling magic, giving Charmcaster a view of her green, horrified face that would've been funny in a less personally dangerous situation.

And then there was that sound again. That fun, nasty sound, not quite like any other sound in the world. The sound of a million jillion bugs coming their way. She gave Gwen a 'nice going, dummy' glare. Whether the bugs were coming because of Gwen or not was irrelevant, she just needed someone to blame to make herself feel better.

It was time to find a new hiding place. Time to pick up Gwen, and run, run, run some more. It was almost starting to feel natural now. She didn't know where she was running to, only that she was running away from the sound, and that was enough for her. Of course, if the tunnels looped back around, they were screwed. Bug tunnels didn't loop back around, did they? Gwen would know, probably, but she didn't feel like asking. Human-controlled bugs (Clancy _was_ human... she thought) were a whole 'nother thing, anyway.

"I really hate things that scuttle," Charmcaster said more to herself than to Gwen. Because talking meant she could ignore how she was actually scared of that loser Clancy after seeing what his bugs could do to someone. And how grossed out she was by all the muck and dirt all around. Her hair was filthy and her coat was gonna stain! "And things that scurry. And creep. And skitter."

"What about things that slither?" Gwen asked shakily, pointing at a ridiculously large black and yellow centipede over their heads as they ran past.

"Things that slither are right out," Charmcaster replied promptly.

Then she ran straight into _another_ mob of insects, that reared up in sync like a snake composed of squirming black dots, poised to strike. Screaming was in order. And more running. And somehow she fell down a spiral staircase-esque tunnel, making it collapse part of the way, and scrambled around aimlessly until she was completely, utterly lost.

But at least she didn't hear the bugs anymore.

"Nice," Gwen finally said after a long silence where neither of them did anything except pant through the dank, unventilated air.

"Shut up."

"Do you remember how to get back to where we were?"

"No. Do you?"

"I'm not even sure which way goes back up! You wrecked the way we took down!"

"Well, excuse me for keeping us alive. I could've let the mantises eat you, but nooooo..." Charmcaster grumbled. Little did Gwen know she wasn't entirely joking. Hauling around this crippled baby was probably more trouble than it was worth.

"Yeah. You could've run off without me, but you didn't." The kid's voice was quiet. Almost ashamed. She was staring at the ground, which fortunately was clean of pests. "Thanks."

"Whatever, I just didn't need the old guy bitching at me for letting you croak," Charmcaster excused herself, setting Gwen down on a soft spot and then flopping down herself. She brushed her hands through her hair and over her jacket fastidiously, shuddering. So much dirt. _Moist_ dirt. Ugh. She wanted a hot bath. With bubbles. And candles. And little scented soaps.

"I mean it," Gwen insisted, weirdly fervent for some reason. "You could've... ow," she stopped herself, making a face as she adjusted the position of her bad leg. "You could've let me die and you'd probably be better off right now. But you didn't. You did the right thing for a change."

"Oh, stop before you make me sick." That part was Charmcaster being honest, too. Between the little gratitude speech and the bugs and the whole being underground thing, she was honestly starting to feel pretty grossed out and shaky. She'd saved Gwen for _her_ purposes, because she needed the goddamn dabbling amateur's parlor tricks. That was all. She just wished she could _tell_ the kid that to put a sock in her craw!

"I thought you were the bad guy," Gwen went on, _still_ in that freaky serious-quiet tone, eyes locked on the ground humbly. "We all thought you were."

"I _am_ the bad guy, dammit!" Charmcaster half-yelled, infuriated and not really sure why. She'd been trying to get them to think she wasn't as bad as she really was. Well, mission accomplished. What was she getting pissy over? "I'm incredibly bad! I'm badder than you'll ever know! I've done dark and terrible things that would drive you _insane_ to learn of!"

Gwen looked over at her with a strange little twisted smile. "Sure, if you say so."

Charmcaster's hands _quivered_ with the repressed desire to strangle. Then, all of a sudden, in the quiet and dark and dirt, all the rage drained out of her, and she slumped bonelessly against the rounded curve between wall and floor. She closed her eyes. At the start, everything had seemed so perfect, so simple, so easy. She'd just keep trying to kill them and eventually she'd work out all the kinks and manage it. Shouldn't take too many tries, right? Just a couple kids and an old man. No real risk, no real danger, she had the perfect alibi and no one could ever possibly suspect her or interfere in any significant way. That was what she'd thought. However did she end up like this?

"Are all Tennysons just as stupid, or is it just you three?" she murmured tiredly. She felt Gwen's tiny body, dirty and sweaty from exertion and fear, leaning against her a little, and couldn't bring herself to care.

"I'm sorry we thought you were the killer."

That had to be the most ironic 'sorry' ever in the history of mankind. It put a sour taste in Charmcaster's mouth. "Save your apologies. I don't deserve them and I don't want them."

"Yeah, sure. You don't need anything from anyone, right?" There was a little humor in the reply, and a little accusation too. "Doesn't matter what anyone thinks about you, you're just fine by yourself. Right?"

"Right," Charmcaster agreed amiably.

"Is that how you wanna live your life? Never letting anyone in? Even me and Ben have little, you know, moments... and we _hate_ each other, so if _we_ can do it..."

Charmcaster chuckled. "When you're a kid, hate and love are basically the same thing."

"Are not! And I'm not a kid! I'll be eleven in like two and a half months!"

"Meh. Anyway, it's better if you're by yourself. Other people let you down."

"Grampa's never let me down," Gwen insisted stubbornly. "And my parents. And my brother. And... Ben comes through whenever it _really_ matters," she added, a lot more hesitantly than all the rest.

"That won't last forever. When you're older and you really get to know people, you'll under- shit..." she interrupted herself.

More bug noises.

They exchanged glances, and immediately huddled down into the dirt, making themselves as unobtrusive and quiet as possible. Gwen's magic lights dimmed down to nothing.

Another formation of bugs 'marched' through the far end of the room, out one tunnel and into another, and then they were gone.

Gwen let out a huge sigh. "Maybe it won't be so bad hiding from the bugs till we can find a way out."

"Maybe, but we don't know where Clancy is," Charmcaster reminded her. "If we slip up and let that guy know we're around, we're screwed. Assuming he doesn't know already."

"I hope they're okay."

Charmcaster didn't have to ask who 'they' were.

"I'm sure they're fine," Charmcaster comforted the kid, rationalizing it as keeping the brat calm so she wouldn't make trouble. "No way can that loser Kevin beat anyone in a fair fight." If she had to rewind again, next time, she'd be killing Kevin first. Slowly. Annoying, arrogant little punk. Her mind turned from vengeance to figuring out a way to escape her current situation with minimal risk. Everything was going _so_ well, that damn Clancy aside, it would be a shame to abandon it all now. "He said he was going to start the attack or whatever it was tomorrow. It's got to be like four am already. Maybe we should just wait until it's tomorrow, when he's distracted, and then bust out."

"But then Grampa and Ben won't know he's coming."

Naturally, the kid _had_ to think of the wellbeing of _other_ people first. Bah. Gwen had been raised so well she was _useless_! Goddamn morals, and caring, and family togetherness, and all the rest of that... crap!

"If they can handle Kevin, they can handle a loser like this bug guy," Charmcaster pointed out. "And if they can't handle Kevin, we're too late to help them anyway." Then she thought of a new angle. She'd use that family togetherness junk in her favor. "Besides," she added more softly, "your grandpa told me to protect you, right? This is the safest way to get both of us out of here. If we get into a real confrontation, I'm not gonna be able to save you. You want me to face your grandpa and tell him I let you get bugged to death?" A wry smile for the bad pun.

Gwen smiled back in almost the exact same way, and it made Charmcaster feel odd. "Only Ben can bug me to death. I guess you're right. It won't be long anyway... I just hope they're not in trouble..."

"Yeah, yeah."

Minutes passed, then hours. Every once in a while they'd hear the bugs, and tense up, waiting for the critters to go by. Eventually Gwen just stopped relighting her magic night light and the two of them sat in the darkness together. If Charmcaster ignored the dirt, and the bad air, and the immediate life-threatening danger, it felt almost like a sleepover.

"It feels like we've done this before," Gwen said after a long time, shifting around a little. She didn't sound sleepy. Probably because her leg hurt too much for her to drift off.

Charmcaster repressed the completely uncharacteristic urge to wrap her jacket around the kid. The jacket was sacro-freaking-sanct and her victim wasn't getting a piece of it, broken leg or no broken leg. "Whadda ya mean?" She yawned a little. She was getting sleepy. But going to sleep would be stupid, in a situation like this. She satisfied herself by narrowing her eyes so they ached a bit less.

"I know this is gonna sound stupid, but it feels like we've known each other for longer than we really have. In the, you know, not trying to fight each other kinda way."

Charmcaster shifted her weight uncomfortably. If the kid started to remember past loops too, things were going to get very fucked up, very quickly. She didn't let any of her worry make the slightest dent in her voice, though. "If you say so."

"I know things are weird. And sometimes life sucks, because you can't have heroes without stuff to fight, and sometimes fighting hurts. But it's _worth_ it. D'you ever... I don't know. D'you ever get the feeling that this summer would be awesome if it never ended?"

Charmcaster stared through the blackness, wide-eyed with dread, at where Gwen was, even though she couldn't see her. "No," she said blankly. "Never."

"Charmcaster?"

"Yeah?"

"Where'd you get your name from?"

"I wished upon a magic pumpkin, and a fairy came and bequeathed it to me."

"...seriously?"

"No, what are you, retarded?" The comeback somehow came out more affectionate rather than with the intended condescension. She let out a breath. It was _hard_ pretending to be not evil but not good when you were really all evil and not even a little bit good! Even pretending to be all good would be easier!

"I get the best grades in _all_ my classes, thank you," Gwen huffed.

Then quiet again. After counting over two hundred sheep, Charmcaster broke it next, purely from boredom.

"You asleep yet?"

"Nope."

"How's your leg?" She had no idea why she was asking. Morbid curiosity, maybe.

"Hurts."

Charmcaster almost said she was sorry, and bite her tongue until the urge passed. What the _hell_ was _wrong_ with her?! She should just kill the damn kid and get it over with!

Except then she'd be all alone in a big bug apartment complex.

With a corpse nearby.

Nooooo thank you.

"Hm," she said instead, barely more than a grunt, blessedly uninformative and detached.

"Do you ever think that you could... you know... not go back to being a bad guy, when you get your magic back?"

And there it was. Gwen had finally popped the question, the question Charmcaster had been waiting bitterly for ever since she'd started this whole twisty turny roller coaster of a scheme. And for some reason, all the numerous eloquent, well thought out answers she'd planned in advance dried up and died on her tongue.

"No," she said simply, shortly, clamping her mouth shut afterwards.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to."

"Why don't you want to?"

"Because you're annoying," she growled. "Now is _not_ the time to act like your age, _Gwendolyn_."

"Well, I wouldn't be annoying if you answered my questions. Why're you being so evasive?"

"Because I'm actually a werewolf, doomed by my cursed bloodline to treat all humanity as nothing more than prey! How's _that_ for an answer?" she snapped sarcastically.

"No way. For real?"

The urge to strangle was rising.

Risiiiiiiiiing.

"Of course not! Everything I say is a lie, haven't you figured that out yet? Jesus Christ."

"Fine, keep your deep dark gloomy emo past to yourself. I bet you don't even have a cool origin or anything! You're probably just a regular person who learned magic and got spoiled by it instead of choosing to help people."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, Gwenny-poo."

"So. You wanna play truth or dare?"

"I beg your fucking pardon?"

"We've been sitting in a dark hole for hours! I'm bored, okay?!"

"Oh, for God's... fine. How about I tell you a story or something instead? It's not like we can do a lot of dares down here."

"That sounds okay."

"Alright. Let me see now." She tried to think of a good story, something interesting but not too complicated, and her mind drew a big blank. Meh. She'd just make a story up. It was just like lying, really, and she was good at _that_. "Okay. This is an old African folk tale..."

"Which country?"

"Uh. Zimbabwe. Now don't interrupt or I won't tell it. So, a very, very long time ago, the world was just a big, green forest. And in that forest lived many kinds of people that crawled and hopped and slithered on the ground. But the cleverest of them all was Spider.

Many of the people looked up at the sky, and longed to get closer to it, because it seemed so beautiful and distant. And so a lot of them did find ways. They climbed upwards, and jumped very high, and grew wings and soared on wind currents, and glided from place to place.

But not Spider. Spider always watched the ground, because he was very small, and very smart, and always worried that people would step on him.

So while the other peoples got closer to the sky and dreamed about touching the clouds or the sun, Spider kept down low in the shadows and the dirt. One day, Spider decided to make a great Web to trap all the peoples and keep them from bouncing and climbing and flying around, so he would be safe. Spider's Web was as huge as an island, and stronger than rock, and soon everyone nearby on the ground and in the trees and in the air was caught in it and couldn't move at all.

Spider lived with them for a time, but after a while he got hungry, so he decided to eat them. One by one he ate them all up until nothing his Web was clean and empty again. And then he looked out at the world past his Web and saw more people looking up at the sky, and grew worried again. What if they came closer and broke his Web? And then he got angry, too. Why should they preen and bathe in the sun, all proud and happy like they were the best creatures on earth when he had to skulk in the dark?!

Spider knew he could catch them all, if he tried his very hardest, and used all his cleverness and strength. So he made his Web even bigger and better, and no place in the world was safe from his silver threads. As time passed, fewer and fewer people were free, and fewer and fewer dared to wish for the sun or the clouds when there was so much to worry about on the ground. Spider ate them all. At last, his Web caught Sun and Moon, and he ate them too, and was happy.

But only for a little while! All alone in the dark, cold and starving, Spider slowly forgot what the sky was, or what light had been, or what his Web was for. Without anyone to eat, Spider even forgot he was Spider, because a Spider without anything to catch in its Web is not really a Spider at all. He became very lonely and very confused, and he even forgot to be worried about people stepping on him. The only thing he never forgot was how hungry he was, and Spider wished he could forget that. In the end, Spider ate his own legs all up, and then his body, and last his head, so there was nothing left of Spider, only the dark and a pretty, clean Web.

The end."

Charmcaster waited for a response, a critique, anything. All she heard were steady, deep breaths.

"Gwen?" she said softly into the darkness.

Asleep, at last. Thank God.

Except, now that her only company was unconscious, Charmcaster was finding herself feeling unusually lonely.

And perhaps just a little scared that some random lethal bug would sting or bite her and kill her before Gwen could use magic to do anything about it.

Oh well. Being an island had its price.

And she paid it, every time.

She relaxed in the dark without actually sleeping as well as she could. But all too soon, a bug patrol came to spoil their little camp out. There wasn't any dodging it or hiding from it, not this time. Judging by the sound it was beelining straight for them, and Charmcaster knew that it was time to run. She shook Gwen awake and then lifted her up unceremoniously.

"Light, dammit! We've got problems and I need to see to run from them!"

Gwen wasn't awake enough to form a witty comeback, but she _was_ awake enough to manage a simple light-conjuring spell, and that was all Charmcaster wanted from her at the moment.

Although she almost wished, upon having light, that she didn't have it after all.

There were a _lot_ of bugs headed for them, from multiple directions. And the first group, the one she'd heard clearly enough to be alerted to in the dark, was almost close enough to nibble their toes. Not heading for the room, not heading in a direction... headed for _them_. There was no mistaking it; whatever way Clancy organized and communicated with his tiny minions had kicked in its defensive procedures, to their detriment.

Aimless running hadn't really been in the plan, but Charmcaster was certain they'd be fine. She wasn't about to get scared off by an unskilled powertripping jerk like Clancy, with no self-discipline for magic or even something as crude and simple as physical exercise! All the twit had was his little mind link with his insignificant insect slaves. Bah. To get screwed by such a worthless person was an unthinkable blow to her ego, she wouldn't allow it. Besides, she still had her little pet apprentice, crippled or not, still perfectly capable of slinging spells. She still had a handle on things, she just needed to get out of this ridiculous deathtrap first!

Although, hearing Gwen mumble scientific crap about pheromones and insects smelling them and how it was so obvious that they were stupid for having holed up like they had, was making it reeeaaal tempting for Charmcaster to abandon her ace in the hole to the insects. But she didn't, because practicality came before personal grudges. Usually, anyway.

Her confidence started waning as she found more and more passages blocked off, dead ending into vile insect hostility. The bugs had taken a long time of it, but now they were acting with all the precision and cooperation of a hive mind. Things were definitely getting troublesome. And all it would take was one bite from the wrong insect to kill either of them, something that made Charmcaster's blood run cold in fear. Maybe it was time to give up. Maybe it was time to just call it a draw and take the safe way out, get a rewind and start over.

No. No. It was okay. She still had Gwen, and Gwen still had the magic. Success _this_ time was almost certain, once she got to the surface again to hide out and clean up the messy aftermath afterwards. She was too close to give up now, and she was sick of giving up over and over! She wasn't going to be beaten by freaking _bugs_, dammit!

"No more running. Time to go _through_ them," she growled, facing the latest blockading swarm with a stiff spine, clutching Gwen like some kind of weapon. "Conjure up some fire and _roast_ the little bugs, Gwen!"

"I can't do fire, yet! Well, unless you count, like, a candle!"

"Oh come _on_, what kind of amateur doesn't learn how to toss a fireball before anything else? Fine! Freeze them solid, we'll walk past their ice cubed bodies."

"I, I can't do that either," Gwen confessed, flushed and ashamed. "Maybe soon..."

"Soon isn't soon enough! We need it now! Dammit, what _can_ you do?!"

Gwen mumbled and gestured, and blew half the bugs several feet away in a flash of purple light... but, being close to weightless, they just caught themselves on the walls of the tunnel and crawled right back instantly.

"Weak concussive energy. Great. You suck," Charmcaster gave her opinion, sighing. "You have _my_ book, you're not, as far as I know, retarded, and you've got some innate talent. You can do better than this." She looked behind them, cringing as she saw the delay had cost them their other escape route: the bugs had come in from behind, too, and blocked them in completely. "You'll _have_ to."

More spells, more magic assaults ensued, but all pathetically weak. It was even making the illumination flicker, apparently Gwen hadn't practiced arcane multitasking too much. Worst of all, Charmcaster saw the dilated eyes, the heavy panting, the excessive sweat, the tremors... all the signs of a magic-user pushing her limits. Maybe the leg injury was making it too hard, sometimes severe physical injuries did interfere. But she couldn't afford to play nice anymore and give the kid a break. The kid had had plenty of breaks, just by still being alive. The only way Charmcaster knew to get them out of this now was by bullying Gwen into going _past_ those limits, no matter what it took. Like straining a muscle, it would hurt, but for a moment you could get more done than you ever had before.

"Gwen! _Look_ at me," she commanded, cold as ice. Locked her eyes with Gwen's green ones. "Gwen, we are going to _die_ if you don't do something about it."

"I-I'm doing everything I can, I swear!"

"No you're _not_! You can do better! INCINERATE THOSE GODDAMN BUGS RIGHT NOW!"

"I CAN'T!" Gwen shrieked right back, eyes tearing up.

"YES YOU CAN! DO IT! DO IT NOW! YOU'VE MASTERED IN WEEKS SPELLS THAT TOOK ME YEARS AND YOU'RE TRYING TO TELL ME YOU CAN'T ZAP A BUG?! BULLSHIT!"

"I WOULD DO IT IF I COULD BUT I CAN'T!"

"YES YOU _CAN_, YOU'RE JUST NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH! TRY HARDER! UNLESS YOU WANT BEN AND YOUR GRANDFATHER TO DIE BECAUSE YOU WEREN'T THERE TO SAVE THEM!"

While Gwen did indeed try harder, the result was a completely unfocused, wild series of energy flashes that lanced all around aimlessly. It got dirt on them and spread the bugs dangerously close more than it did anything useful. Charmcaster shook with fear and anger on seeing that that last effort had put a black widow spider five inches from her. She stomped on it.

"CONCENTRATE AND FOCUS ON YOUR TARGET AND TURN IT INTO ASH! YOU GOT THAT?! YOU'D BETTER DO IT, OR... OR I'll THROW YOU TO THEM!"

Gwen stared in shock, mouth a round little 'o,' then clung to her painfully tightly, like a child who had been threatened with being thrown in the deep end of the pool before learning how to swim. "Pl-please don't, I'm sorry, please, I'll, I'll do something, just please don't..."

"THEN YOU'D BETTER DO SOMETHING ABOUT _THAT_!" Charmcaster snarled, holding Gwen between two outstretched arms and shaking her in the direction of the bugs. "GET RID OF THEM OR I'LL LEAVE YOU TO DIE HERE, I SWEAR IT! Don't you understand, I can't keep doing this!" she lowered her voice partially, almost pleading, talking to herself, really, now. "I'm sick of this... I can't keep doing this over and over again... it's all crap, just crap..."

Gwen muttered words. Magic? Not really. The start of magic, maybe. A syllable here and there. But always stopping, starting something else before anything coherent or useful got out. She shook like a leaf in the wind, and dug her nails into Charmcaster's arms so hard they probably drew blood.

"I'm s-sorry," she finally whined, tears streaming down her face. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I can't do it, I'm sorry..."

And, with a kind of morbid fascination and something close to regret, Charmcaster realized that she'd lost this time around, and would have to rewind. She watched Gwen have a breakdown and truly act like the little girl she in fact was. So easy to forget, between the magic and the hero duties and all the rest of the madness that went with the Tennysons.

"I-I w-want Grampa," Gwen whimpered, utterly lost and helpless, clutching at Charmcaster's arms with a death grip. "Grampa and B-Ben... Ben always s-saves me... he h-hates me b-but he always saves me and I d-don't know w-why..." Barely intelligible through the hiccuping crying. Intelligible enough to make Charmcaster look away, though, a constricted feeling in her chest. "Grampa, Ben, pl-please save us like you always do, y-you never let us down b-before, come s-save me... Grampa... Ben..."

"Goddammit," she said calmly, voice harsh and rough from all the screaming, an admission of defeat to the world, or Doppelcaster, or God, or whatever. Dropping Gwen would have been more effort than it was worth. She wrapped an arm around the stupid kid, and reached for her tape with the free hand. Felt the smooth plastic with relief, her last resort, her lifeline.

She'd just have to start over again.

Just like last time.

And the time before that.

And the time before that.

And the time before that.

And the time before _that_.

And the time before THAT.

"GODDAMMIT!" she screamed, outrage to the heavens. What had she ever done to deserve such a fucking Tantalus of a torment?! "Rewind," she said, low and grim.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Charmcaster had gone through enough rewinds that everything had a treacherous familiarity to it by now. Everything had been done before, and if anything surprised her, it was usually something that happened only as a direct result of her actions. Which was why it was so very shocking, and more than a little bit scary, to take in the scene at the start of her latest time jump and realize that she had no idea what was going on. This was something new. This was something she _hadn't_ experienced before.

She should have been with the Tennysons, in their junky van, but there weren't any Tennysons in sight. She was in a room she'd never seen before, a brightly lit classroom with smooth, shiny desks.

There were about fifty other Charmcasters in the room, staring at her with varying levels of polite hostility. One Doppelcaster had been bad enough, but this was freaking absurd. It was like the universe was parodying itself.

"What the hell," she mumbled, trying to find some obvious visual differences between them and her, between any one of them and the rest of them, and finding nothing. They all looked the same, down to the last little hair.

"Oh, hi there," the Doppelcaster standing in front of the chalkboard called over to her. "Take a seat, we just started going over the battle plans a couple minutes ago, so you haven't missed much."

After being addressed in such a casually authoritative tone in such a setting, many people would have instinctively obeyed. But Charmcaster didn't respect anyone, and sure as heck didn't obey anyone unless it was in her best interests. And that included freaky duplicates, after the last one tortured her! _Her_ instinct was to bolt, and she edged towards a window, trying to see if it was openable or not without making it too obvious that that was what she was trying to do.

But everyone was still watching her. It was impossible to be sneaky with that many eyes pinned on her, waiting to see what she'd do. She felt naked. And it was amazing, how scared you could be of yourself, once you really knew what you were capable of. Not that she let it show on her face, of course. She still had her pride. She'd always have that.

"Come on, there's no escape from here that would keep us from dragging you right back if we wanted to," the one in front went on, mildly annoyed. "Sit down and join the rest of us in mutually beneficial cooperation. Alright, _fine_," she added with more obvious irritation, sighing and crossing her arms. "Guess I'll just have to explain things all over again, it's not like one more time'll hurt. Judging by your caught in the headlights look, you're a total newbie, right?"

"I'm not," Charmcaster snapped back, her pride tweaked for some reason at the assumption. "I know about the exponentially-worsening temporal side effects and everything. But why the hell am I in this room? I've never been here before! And why are there like a small army of you… people… around, when I've never been in a loop with more than one copy?"

The soft, condescending chuckles around her drove her into a murderous fury that she grimly suppressed. Maybe this was how the first Doppelcaster got so nuts. Nothing was more aggravating than being laughed at by _yourself_. Enough of that and she could see herself torturing herself, maybe, just a little.

"You're not as experienced as you think," the Doppelcaster apparently in charge said, sitting down on on top of one of the front desks, one leg swinging. It brought to Charmcaster's mind the bat the first copy had rolled on her knees, for some reason. "But good, I'm glad I don't have to explain the basics of the rewinding 'issue' to you. What you're missing is the social aspect. You see, enough failures and we all start to realize we'd be better off working together."

That was the lie Charmcaster had put to use against the first Doppelcaster, that lame truce crap. But she would never have a truce that held for longer than absolutely necessary with a nutjob like that. Not with the memories of pain and smiling interrogation and where's the fucking tape engraved into her memory in brilliant bloody colors. An organized gathering like this was just stupid. These others weren't her, weren't anything like her at all. She established that as a solid fact in her mind, a foundation to relax on, and felt better.

She'd missed a lot of Doppelcaster's explanatory speech, but she could guess the pertinent facts and pretend like she knew the rest. "…and with more side effects, there's more enemies, making a coalition more and more important and practical with each iteration. You see? This Rambo crap just won't work in today's rewind environment. We work together, kill together, or die together."

The old Doppelcaster had said that side effects weren't predictable or steady. Sometimes they'd get drastically worse, or drastically normal. The overall trend was towards the worse, though. She'd just gotten a really big hit of the worse, but that didn't mean the next one had to be this insane. She'd just rewind to something easier to deal with, and-

"-this accord gives mutual profit and do NOT even THINK about grabbing your tape and rewinding," Doppelcaster said coldly, smoothly sliding from speech to warning without a blink.

They were closing in on her a bit, just slightly, in a seemingly friendly way, but it was enough to warn her. She couldn't try it. Not now, not with all of them watching and expecting her to do it. They'd stop her, and maybe take her tape, and then she'd be screwed. Swallowing, Charmcaster slowly, deliberately let her hands settle at her sides, away from the pouch.

"Speaking of which, I'm afraid we'll have to confiscate your tape, seeing as how you're only a level two."

Charmcaster blinked. "Excuse me?" she said disbelievingly. That some of her other selves were psychotic, she could easily see. That they had succumbed to _red_ _tape_, though… that was a horror beyond horrors she refused to accept.

"Level one, totally ignorant of the temporal mess we're in," Doppelcaster explained, holding up one finger. "Level two, aware of the basic situation but new to the coalition." That was a second finger. "Level three, a supportive and trusted member." A third finger. "And of course level four. That's me."

"Why do you get to be level four?" Charmcaster asked with perhaps a little more surliness than she'd meant. Some of the other Doppelcasters winced.

Suddenly there was a pistol pointing at her. Not a flare gun, a real freaking pistol. That probably had real freaking bullets in it. It was dark and shiny and the barrel was held very steadily and it made Charmcaster want to scream and run away.

"Because I'm the only one with a gun," the leader Doppelcaster announced with morbid cheer. "Any questions?"

Mutely, Charmcaster shook her head.

"Good. Then toss your pouch gently to me, and take a seat."

Helpless, again, and nothing to do about it. It was just as bad as being tied up and threatened with a bat. The surroundings were outwardly more civil, but in the end, it was all the same crap. Why did the other hers always have to be so damn _evil_? _She_ wouldn't be that evil to herself… unless she _had_ to be. Well, she'd be that evil to the one who had tortured her, and revel in it, but that was different! Justified revenge didn't count!

The idea of giving up her sole escape route, her grand safety button, didn't appeal at all. In fact it was almost the most unappealing idea ever. But a bullet through her head was even less appealing, so she slowly, teeth grinding, gave over the tape, swearing to get it back, or one of the Doppelcasters' tapes, as soon as possible. Her precious last resort was tossed into a clear plastic bin with dozens of others just like it. The bin wasn't locked, there wasn't anything preventing anyone from snatching a tape... except for the small ring of fanatical-looking Doppelcasters that surrounded it, fiddling with small weapons in a way that was both flaunting of status and warning to the peons.

After that, there was a crude but effective slide show, laying out the basics of the enemy camp and the day's assault plan. Charmcaster managed to soak in a lot of background information from the implied facts rather than being directly told anything. There were at least as many copies of Tennysons and Kevins as there were of her in this universe, and an equal number of Rustbuckets, all drawn up into a great big circle like wagons in old Western movies. There were a few separate factions of Tennysons and particularly of Kevins, but the majority of them kept together, helped each other, defended against the attacks of the Charmcaster Coalition. The attacks had gone on for about two weeks in this particular universe, although they'd initially began and had continued in a wide variety of other parallel universes in other rewinds. Each rewind increased the chances of a Tennyson or Kevin remembering past loops, which was why rewinding was strictly limited to those who were trusted by the head Doppelcaster (Gun Bitch, as Charmcaster now thought of her) to act in the best interests of the Coalition. Doppelcasters weren't expected to _die_ for the cause, of course... Charmcaster knew herself better than to expect that kind of self-sacrifice... but they were expected to fight the good fight and only rewind when no other options were left for survival.

Of course, all this chaos had drawn a lot of attention from other, entirely separate factions yet. It had drawn in local police, a few suspiciously vague government agencies, the current timeline's Kevin (who was apparently a thoroughly nasty mishmash of alien parts with a strong penchant for bashing in the faces of any Bens he saw), a smattering of aliens ranging from bounty hunters to superheroes to the interstellar equivalent of reporters, and some weirdly sociable guy in a long coat who claimed that all this rewinding was making a serious clusterfuck of time, space, and everything in between. They knew that already, of course. The coated man had been content to complain snarkily and then teleport off before being met with violence, anyway, so he wasn't considered a threat so much as a comical nuisance.

Yes, all things considered, it was a total clusterfuck. Far worse than Charmcaster had ever imagined possible, but the others seemed to think it was normal enough, which scared her even more. She didn't want to see any timelines like this one again, no no no. Not ever again. She'd rewind a thousand times before she got into another mess like this. They were all 'lucky' that the area was relatively low population and isolated, or it would have been even worse! As it was, there was a strong possibility of the US military moving in in as little as a week, so the battle plans were getting a lot more daring. They'd finish it soon, or rewind again.

Which brought a rather disturbing, hitherto unpondered question into Charmcaster's mind. The others were all clones, copies that'd split off from her. She was the _real_ one, the one who'd started everything. She'd never been in a universe where she hadn't been the one to do the rewinding. If someone else did a rewind, what would happen to _her_? Would she still exist? And if she existed, would she remember all the past loops and remember how to rewind again? The idea of being trapped in the loops, as thoroughly and cluelessly trapped as any Tennyson, brought a sick, dull feeling of horror into her that she couldn't shake. Things hadn't ever been meant to get this messed up. It should have been simple. Two kids and one adult, dead. It should have been simple, but it snowballed into this... monstrosity! She shouldn't have messed with time magic in the first place. She hadn't been ready for it, not on this level of magnitude, not with so much repetition. Hex could have taught her better, but no, he hadn't trusted her with 'dangerous' magic... by which he'd meant magic strong enough to threaten himself! What a useless skeleton of a teacher he'd been.

The plan, as far as Charmcaster could tell, was sensible enough. Wait till just a little before dawn, well past the most alert night watchs but still with the cover of darkness, split into multiple groups, sneak in and take hostages. Lots and lots of hostages. Not all of the Gwens knew magic, not all of the Kevins had morphing powers, and not all of the Bens had alien watches, so this was more doable than one would initially expect. Take the hostages back before some of the wilder Kevins turned things into a bloodbath, and then start issuing seemingly rational, truce-oriented demands that would in fact set the remainder of the enemy up for a nice lethal ambush. The hostages would be kept alive just long enough to prove to the rest of the enemy that they were, in fact, alive, and then would be killed in secret, to minimize potential screwups. It was manipulative, dishonorable, and had a very good chance of working.

With the previously relied upon element of surprise ambushes completely blown, the only way to win, in this timeline, was to use the virtues of the heroes against them, and to play the part of the bad girl to the hilt. Fighting 'fair' would end in a loss, a rewind, and even more complications to deal with. Screw that. Treacherous and sneaky was the _only_ way to go. Charmcaster didn't really like all the cooperation or the fact that her little scheme had mushroomed into a small superpowered war, but she understood the rationale behind the strategies being employed and agreed with all of it.

What they were going to do with each other if they did win and kill all the Tennysons was suspiciously left completely unsaid, not even indirectly referred to. Charmcaster personally suspected Gun Bitch had a plan to kill them all off, starting with the lowest ranks and working upwards from there. But, first things first. Even if she wanted to rewind, she couldn't do it right now, so she had to at least play along and pretend like she was cooperating... which was probably the same thing as actual cooperating for the most part, sickening as it was. There was nothing to do except go along with it and trust in her natural survival instincts and ingenuity to help her spot an opening to gain an advantage when a chance came. And she didn't doubt that it would come and that all the copies wouldn't snatch it from her. No matter _who_ had the gun, _she_ was the _real_ Charmcaster. And she'd prove it to all these pathetic fakes who thought they could outmuscle, outthink, or outevil her.

She'd never gone to school, so the classroom didn't really have many emotional associations for her. Nonetheless it was impossible not to feel like a kid when she found herself snacking, along with five others in her assigned 'squad,' on apples, cheese sticks, and crackers for a late night supper. Supposedly all the 'good' cafeteria food had been eaten a long time ago, but she was happy enough with what she had, her appetite too dulled to find much objectionable so long as it filled her stomach. She didn't mind drinking either, but having to refill the tiny cup seven times to get one real cup's worth of liquid was ridiculous. During the snacking, she chatted with the others in her little group, and was amused and relieved to find they acted exactly as she'd expected them to: slightly condescending and more than slightly suspicious, but friendly and open to one of their own kind. They never really let their guard down, but they saw no profit in starting up squabbles and had no real desire to hurt or mock what they saw as another, slightly less legitimate version of themselves. They weren't, in a word, total psychos, and reacted with universal disgust when she shared with them her first encounter with a Doppelcaster.

"Yeah, sometimes you get freaks like that," the Doppelcaster with a Gwen-stolen blue hairclip responded with a grimace and a nod. "Ones that just... totally veer off of what makes us _us_, right? But you gotta remember, the odds of that are like... one in a thousand, a million maybe? So you'll meet a ton of regulars for every torturer type."

"What was the worst one of us _you_ ever met?" Charmcaster asked pointedly, curious to see if her copies could possibly be even worse, or if she'd already seen the bottom of the barrel.

"Oh, well I'm not the one to ask, I haven't had many... OH! Oh, Tanktop, you have to tell her about the one who did the stew thing!"

Although the disgustingly bureaucratic Coalition had given them all numbers (Charmcaster's was five hundred sixty-three), within the squad she quickly gathered that they used nicknames. Tanktop was Tanktop because she had a, that's right, tanktop underneath the ubiquitous jacket. Not that anyone could tell by looking. She honestly had no idea how even the others in their squad didn't keep getting each other confused. There was no way she was going to keep them all straight, even if she cared enough to try, which she didn't. Even if they were reassuringly nice and nonpsychotic.

Tanktop leaned in with a grin and eyes wide with anticipatory storytelling glee. "Okay, so one time I was in a timeline with just two other mes, right? And they seemed normal enough. We all got along and played family with the Tennysons and worked out a plan to off the bozos cooperatively like civilized witches. But one of them was nuts, you couldn't tell most of the time but every once in a while she just went... she was just, whooo." Tanktop waved her hands in a wild series of gestures supposed to be indicative of... Charmcaster had no idea what. "She helped the old guys cook a lot. And then one day, the crazy bitch up and kills Doppelcaster the Third, grinds the poor thing up into sausage, cooks a freakin' STEW out of her, and SERVES HER TO US with a side of sweet potato fries!"

The last bit of a cheese stick hung unattended out of Charmcaster's mouth and slipped out, falling to the table. Queasily, she imagined the scene as Tanktop described it with morbid, laughing relish. She didn't find it funny. Not at all. It was sickening. Sickening that even a pale copy of her would ever do something like that. And she actually felt a little sorry for the killed Doppelcaster, and for the Tennysons and Kevins too. Sure, she hurt people and enjoyed her power trips, but still... that was just... _inhuman_. There were limits. Or at least guidelines! Or, or something!

"Luckily, I figured out what had happened before I ate any of it," Tanktop went on. "You can imagine the craziness that broke out when I told them all while they were slurping it down. Bagged me a Kevin and both Gwens before I had to rewind. Damn Omnitrix. That speedy alien is _really_ annoying. But yeah, that was the worst Doppelcaster I've ever met. Cannibalcaster, right, how wrong-great is _that_? We've compared all over between the squads, and I don't think anyone's beat that one yet."

Unable to stand the vivid images her imagination kept cascading through her mind, Charmcaster let her forehead rest on the edge of the table, closing her eyes. "That's just sick," she said tiredly. "I don't get it."

"Huh?"

"I mean, how could _I_ do that? Even another version of me?" she asked, lifting her head back up and looking almost accusingly at Tanktop, Hairclip, and the rest of the squad. "We all start at the same point, right? Everything up to the start of the first rewind or so is still... _me_, right?" Their nods confirmed the assumption. "Then how could some of you guys diverge that much? You're copies, alternate versions, whatever, but you're still supposed to be kinds of _me_, in a way. Right? But I can't see myself doing any of that crap with the stew. It's just so... so _tasteless_," she spat out, unable to put an accurate word to the dark, revolted feelings boiling inside her, but willing to settle for a mere aesthetic judgement term for pride's sake. Always for pride's sake.

"You've gotta understand," a third one whose nickname she hadn't learned yet spoke up, "everything up to a point is the same, but everything _after_ is totally up for grabs. The stress or not of the rewinds, the amount of rewinds, the experiences inside the rewinds and the duration spent in them... practically anything can happen to us. And it can happen pretty much infinitely. Some of us have only gone through one, two rewinds before finding the Coalition. Others, the real vets, they've been in hundreds. The Leader claims she's been in over a thousand. That's a lotta potential trauma. And who could go through all that without the slightest chance of going crazy, honestly? You'd have to be insane to start with to get through this without any possibility of cracking up."

"We're all just possibilities of each other," a fourth Doppelcaster put in. "Just, some possibilities... they're like diamonds. Made out of lots and lots of time and even more pressure."

"I bet that's the first time anyone's ever compared Cannibalcaster to a diamond," Tanktop said snarkily, and from there the conversation drifted to lighter topics.

--

They leaned together underneath a bushy hill awaiting near-dawn and a signal, satisfied enough in their concealment that the only danger they feared in the immediate future was serious boredom. When Hairclip went over their part of the great big plan for the nth time, Charmcaster didn't tell her to shut up, mainly because listening to anything beat waiting in silence. And anyway, she hadn't been paying very close attention the first few times it'd been explained, so the refresher was useful.

"So once we get the signal we join the second group with the distractions to maximize the chaos once things've broken out into a red alert. After the second signal we split from the group, grab an easy target, and run. Remember not to get greedy or anything and hang around looking for more targets; we've all got grudges to pay back but this isn't a long term fight we're in for here. And it's okay to deviate from the plan if you have to, but have a good excuse for every change you make from the party line, or the higher ups'll get pissed at you."

"Fucking bureaucracy," Charmcaster grumbled. "Can't believe this abomination spawned out of clones of me. Whatever, let's just get this over with."

"It's not a bureaucracy," Hairclip protested. "It's organization. Not the same thing."

"We're freaking three digit numbers!"

"That's just to keep track of everyone in the Leader's lists and crap, for real communication everyone uses the nicknames."

Charmcaster blew out a sigh. "Whatever. We could take her out easy, you know," she added more lowly, as though the shadows had more Doppelcasters to hear her words. For all she knew, they did. "One gun against all of us?"

"It's not worth the trouble. The ones she hasn't bribed to be on her side are mostly too scared to rebel, and the rest of us find it easier to just wait for a lucky rewind where the Coalition's weak. That gun's just the weapon you can _see_. I could tell you stories about Doppelcasters vanishing... and other things... it's easier, better, just to go along with things and wait it out."

"So she's on top 'cause she makes it too inconvenient to bump her down? Smart," Charmcaster conceded grudgingly.

Hairclip smirked. "Of course she is. Like me and you. Sometimes our other selves may take a trip to crazy town, but I've never met a double that was _stupid_."

Charmcaster smirked back, idly waving a hand through the tall grass and listening to the rustle. "Good point So, how much longer do we have?"

Hairclip checked her (stolen from a five-year old, she proudly claimed) pink Barbie watch. "'Bout half an hour."

"Greeeaaat."

"Bored?"

"Incredibly?"

"Yeah, me too."

They were quiet for a moment.

"Wanna make out?" Hairclip asked idly.

Genuinely shocked speechless, Charmcaster opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. "I, uh... _what_?"

"Come on, it's a traditional evil twin slash clone duplicate whatever thing to do. Aren't you curious to see what it's like?"

Having never really thought of herself as gay, and in fact barely caring enough to think of herself as having any kind of sexuality at all, Charmcaster mused over this unconventional concept with more than a little bewilderment. "This isn't like some Spartan we're all gay in the squad thing, is it?" she asked suspiciously.

"Hahah, no! I've never done anything like that before. We're usually too busy trying to figure out how to kill the Tennysons to bother with anything else. I'm just... curious..."

Well, okay, Charmcaster admitted she _did_ look great, and that went for her hairclipped double as well. The idea didn't contain any inherent repulsion to her, it just seemed... weird. Well, no weirder than anything else about this universe, anyway. "You probably just want to set me up so you can do something to me when my guard's down," she said matter-of-factly, not because she really believed it but because she wanted to let it be known that she was not a fool who got careless about these things.

Hairclip tilted her head, hand propped along her jaw. "Oh really?"

Despite her declaration, Charmcaster hadn't expected to be immediately shoved down, an arm pushed firmly down on her throat, a free hand clutching a shiny little knife that was held cold against her cheek. _She_ hadn't gotten a weapon because she was only a level two. The higher levels were supposed to look after her! But no, this one was psycho too, just like the first Doppelcaster had been, and now she was _so_ screwed...

Heart thudding, Charmcaster stared fixedly into Hairclip's identical eyes, and tried to think of the best way to get that damn knife away from her.

Then Hairclip smiled, a strangely twisted and sad little smile. The knife traced down to Charmcaster's neck, held gently there almost like a caress. "It's okay," she said soothingly, quietly. "How could I hurt you? You're me. I could never hurt me. I love me. The only person I've ever loved. So that means I love you, too..." she trailed off, lowering the knife and leaning in for a kiss.

From confusion to fear to confusion again, Charmcaster didn't nearly have the presence of mind to stop the kiss. She did, however, grab ahold of the knife. Oddly enough, Hairclip didn't fight that, in fact, just let her share a grip on the knife while they kissed. It was a pretty good kiss, as far as kisses went... no tongue, nothing really lewd, but not cloyingly gentle or hesitant either. It was a confident, almost solemn kiss, and neither of them closed their eyes during it.

Too many conflicting emotions boiled in her, and eventually simmered down into an unusual sentimentality that she wasn't sure she'd ever really felt before. She kissed back experimentally, scattering a few over the double's jaw and neck, reaching up to stroke her hair. Well, she _was_ the only person she'd ever really given a damn about. And even if Hairclip wasn't her... they were close enough, close enough that it seemed to not be a betrayal of her life philosophy. And anyway, she was just bored, and wanted to kill time, and this wasn't the worst way to do it. It was certainly interesting in its own way. Very novel. How many people could claim that they'd made out with themselves? She was pretty sure the list of names would be pretty dang short.

But sentiment only went so far, and after a few minutes of kisses and pettings she was forced to admit to herself she was getting bored again. She broke up from the embrace with a genuine kind gentleness she had, until this moment, had no idea she was capable of, outside of using it as a tool to fuck people over with.

"Sorry, it was a nice try, but this isn't doing a thing for me," she said almost apologetically, grinning. When Hairclip grinned back identically, she was unaccountably relieved. Why should she care what the double thought or did? It was just another fake. Even if a _nice_ one, for a change.

"I guess it'd turn out way more awkward if we'd actually liked it, huh," she commented, causing Charmcaster to chuckle appreciatively. "Talk about more trouble than it's worth. That kind of thing'll get you killed, even _without_ bringing all this temporal magic bullshit into it."

"No kidding! How many times have we used sex to off the Tennysons? It always makes them such easy targets!"

They laughed, and talked about random rewind experiences for a little while, and then it was time to go.

_I wonder if this is what it's like to have a sister._

The thought came to Charmcaster clearly and randomly, in the middle of their jog to the main distraction group, and it blasted her mind frozen solid. It took almost a minute of staring at nothing and moving purely mechanically, following her partner, before she could think coherently again. What the _hell_ was wrong with her? She had to stop letting down her guard! Nice or not, Hairclip was still an extraneous copy, pointless, disposable, and ultimately dangerous if kept around too long. Her goal on starting this whole insane time loop quest was what she had to keep in mind. Complications had to be... pruned.

Then her mind went cold for a different reason, vaguely sickened at herself.

Pruning complications. That was just the sort of thing the first Doppelcaster would've gone for.

But... what the hell was she _supposed_ to do, if not that?! She couldn't let duplicates live in the same universe as her, could she? Or couldn't she? They were dangerous and in the way! If she started letting dangerous people in the way of her goals live just because those people looked like her and were nice, where would it go after that? Where would it end? Would she start letting anyone who was nice or good-looking live? Would she cramp her whole lifestyle, her entire philosophy of freedom and self-fulfillment, for the sake of the leftovers of a backfired magic experiment?

She was so confused, and listening to Hairclip's soft, intelligent but mildly affectionate chatter didn't help straighten her head any.

When they got to the group, one of the last stragglers to make it, and the signal came, she was relieved. Following orders was completely against her nature, but at least it gave her something to do so she could stop thinking for a bit. There was too much to think about, and she'd had enough thinking and craved action. It was satisfying, too, to watch everything play out the way it'd been shown to play on the slides... that Leader Doppelcaster was a bitch, but a bitch with a good grasp of strategy. As good as her own, sure, why not. The primary kidnappings had already taken place, the distraction effort was just to allow enough confusion to make sure the main force get away, and to stir things up enough so that a few more final soft targets presented themselves for the pickings before a full retreat was made. She'd been very worried about how it would play out with non-magic-using Doppelcasters against a variety of Omnitrix alien forms, grandfather-wielded lasers, and all the rest of the Tennyson madness, but it went so smoothly even she could find no nits to pick. The attack had started near the end of the night watch, so the enemy who were awake from the start were dead tired. And the rest, in addition to being confused from being woken up, were frantically searching for their missing relatives and friends, too disorganized to mount any kind of effective defense. The Coalition had had clear goals to achieve. The Tennyson group was saddled with dozens of different goals, every individual in it focused on protecting a different Gwen or Ben or Grampa or Kevin. In the dark, finding the 'right' Tennysons was impossible for the good guys to manage, but they still tried, because they were sentimental idiots who couldn't discipline themselves to protect the majority while abandoning those closest to them. The whole independent hero paradigm just wasn't design for an army's worth of close family units. This was the kind of thing that needed military training to counter, and while several of the grandfathers did their best, even they gave in to sentimentality in the end, preferentially helping out the younger Gwens and Bens over everyone else.

No one died, and very few were seriously injured, but there was a lot of panic, and shouting, and worry and terror. Charmcaster almost felt sorry for them, but every once in a while one of them would become enraged enough to try to inflict serious damage on a Doppelcaster, and that was enough to put the familiar cynical paranoia back into her heart. They were the enemy. They were naive morons. They were _in the way_.

Passion in her little crusade renewed, she grabbed roughly at a random ten year-old Gwen, intending to make that her prize to carry back to the Coalition so they'd stop treating her like a newbie who barely knew her head from her feet. But in her haste she'd made a bad decision, what had looked like a helpless, whimpering Gwen in the dimness quickly turned out to be a Gwen who was berserking over some battle-related loss or other. The tears that streamed down the kid's cheeks weren't the kind that made her more helpless, rather, they served as a warning sign of a seriously unhinged mental state.

Gwen spoke arcane words, in a voice that shrieked and hissed and broke, and Charmcaster recognized them with immediate terror.

The young Gwen she'd been familiar with hadn't known how to cast combat-useful fire spells.

But this one did.

It wasn't a lightweight spell. The runes were tracing in the air, a second away from completion, and by their complexity and shine Charmcaster knew it to be a little offensive nuke with enough raw power in it to do uncle Hex proud. If that thing landed at point blank range, it was more likely to kill than 'just' maim. Charmcaster knew this, knew it perfectly well because she was a good enough student of magic to comprehend things like this thoroughly even when only given a split second to process it. But she didn't have the time to think of anything to do. It was concussive in a small area, there would be no dodging it. It couldn't be disrupted without setting it off, and while that would set it off at a fraction of its full power, it would still almost certainly destroy anyone who tried it. She didn't know what to do.

A random nearby Doppelcaster pushed her, probably by accident, at the exact moment the spell went off. It was close enough that Charmcaster still got a good facefull of sparks from it, but that was the worst she got, and she rolled to one side, intent on running. Forget getting a hostage, this was too high-risk an environment for her! The Doppelcaster who'd taken the spell in her stead was smoking and limp on the ground, chest barely moving with shuddering gasps.

Then she saw the little hair ornament, blackened and warped from the heat.

Hairclip. It'd been Hairclip. And it hadn't been an accidental jostling at all, had it? The stupid bitch had done it on purpose, and what the hell was the point of self-sacrificial bullshit like that?! It made her so angry, to think that any duplicate of her could ever do something so... so Tennyson-like! Spitting out a curse like venom, she grabbed Hairclip awkwardly but tightly, and ran like hell. She wasn't really sure why she grabbed Hairclip. Maybe she just wanted a chase to bitch the dumbass out before she finished dying. Yeah, that was it.

She wasn't exactly sure which direction she was going in, but it was away from the fight, and that was the important thing. A few minutes later she was far enough away that she dared to stop for a brief moment. She put Hairclip down and inspected the damage. It was pretty bad. Hairclip didn't really look like her anymore. More like a barbie doll that'd been put in the microwave for too long. It was amazing the girl was still alive, really. And somehow it made Charmcaster's chest squeeze uncomfortably, to watch those halting breaths, to imagine the kind of pain Hairclip had to be feeling.

"Guess you weren't me after all," she said at least, staring into slowly glazing eyes. "I never would've done something like that. You've been around the heroes for too long, you poor dummy."

"_G-guess_... _so_," Hairclip wheezed. The lips twisted into something that might have been a smile. "_D-don't even knuh_, _know why_... _I did it_. _J-just_... _did_..."

Charmcaster had to look away. She couldn't stand to look anymore, but she didn't know why. It wasn't like she cared. "Yeah, well. Thanks for saving me, I guess."

And then she watched Hairclip very quietly die.

With hands that trembled even though they had no reason to (none that she would acknowledge, anyway), she searched the body, and found what she'd hoped to find. A tape. A bit seared, but still mostly intact, thanks to the protective qualities of the enchanted pouch it was kept in. Hairclip's last gift to her, whether the dead girl had intended it to be that way or not.

Even if the battle plans worked out exactly as the Coalition wanted, there was no way in hell Charmcaster was going to stay behind and fight for dominance with dozens of twins in this fucked up excuse for a universe. No matter what risks she was taking from rewinding with so many extra factors left alive, nothing could be worse than the hellhole she was in now. And she sure as _fuck_ wasn't going to risk letting someone else rewind before she did it, who knew what the consequences of that would be for her.

Driven by some nameless impulse, she traced a finger over Hairclip's burnt, cracked lips, almost as if expecting to feel another breath come through that dead mouth. She blinked a little, wondering if she was just imagining her eyes watering slightly.

Eh.

Heroes got what they deserved.

"Rewind." Her voice was calm and icy.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

"Okay, then, is that your real hair color?"

Oh, thank God. Charmcaster'd been worried that rewinding from that last fucked up scenario would've landed her into something even worse, if there could BE anything worse. But instead she was back at the start again, and everything was normal. Stretched out on her bunk generously donated by the grandfather, talking with a slightly suspicious but still totally manageable ten year-old Gwen. This she could handle. She could handle it without breaking a sweat.

"No, I dye it." The words came automatically, she didn't have to think of them first and she didn't even really listen to them as they came out. The pretense of sociability, of sharing and caring and all the rest of that crap was so automatic to her by now it almost felt entirely natural. And maybe that was something else to worry about, but she'd worry about it later. She'd earned some rest after that last freaking crazy loop, and anyway, she'd warped back to a point in time where her body was genuinely tired anyway. She yawned, and didn't bother to waste energy covering her mouth.

"I guess I oughta thank you," Gwen went on grudgingly, much softer.

Charmcaster blinked, looking over to Gwen and really seeing the kid for the first time since popping into the current universe. The little girl was in the same position, wore the same cutesy pajamas, but she seemed... drawn, somehow. Shrunken. Like someone who'd unconsciously developed a fear of being noticed. And that thanking line wasn't part of their script. Oh well. No harm in some minor variations.

"Whyzat?" Charmcaster asked politely, even though she didn't care. She yawned again. Hopefully the brat would stop asking questions soon, sleep would be nice.

"I'd rather sleep with you in here than Grampa," Gwen said even more quietly, so low it was barely intelligible. Her green eyes moved briefly up front to the cab where the grandfather was sleeping, then sunk down to stare at the floor, unblinking. There was a vague depression in her face that Charmcaster couldn't remember ever seeing before.

It was something she ought to be asking more about, Charmcaster knew. She had to interrogate and gather information as soon as she could, to figure out if there were any differences in this universe that she needed to be prepared for. She should drill Gwen till the kid was out of answers to give, so long as it could be done without arousing suspicion. But snugged up in her warm, soft little bunk, listening to the boy brat's almost cute snore and watching Gwen's oddly subdued behavior, she just couldn't bring herself to get on with it. What the hell, why worry about it when she had, literally, all the time in the world? She'd start working on killing the Tennysons tomorrow. Tonight was officially her vacation. So with that settled in her mind, she let Gwen alone, and since the kid was strangely quiet, that was the end of the conversation.

Gwen went to sleep first, and the sneaky, scheming part of Charmcaster's mind immediately suggested that she should probably just kill all three Tennysons right now, while they were sleeping. But there were a jillion things that could mess that up, she knew, she'd tried before. And she honestly didn't feel like making the effort just at the moment.

What she wanted was to sleep, but she couldn't, for some reason. Her brain wouldn't stop buzzing. So instead, she got up, stretched reluctantly, and strode out of the van, hoping a little night air walking would get her relaxed and ready for the sandman.

...and walked right into teenage Ben, teenage Gwen, and some huge green squidfaced alien, the lot of them standing all of ten feet away from the Rustbucket and looking around in dizzy confusion.

The big alien was the first one of the four of them to regain his wits.

"Who _dares_ transport the mighty Vilgax, reaver of worlds, without his consent?!"

"Oh, come the fuck _on_," Charmcaster moaned despairingly to the universe at large. Couldn't she _ever_ get a break?! Just _one_ normal universe after that awful Coalition fiasco, was that too much to ask for?!

Apparently so.

Going by the reactions of the older Gwendolyn and Ben, this Vilgax freak was apparently a member of the Tennyson rogue gallery. Predictably, violence broke out. And Charmcaster, for her part, hid behind a tree and started humming the kung fu fighting song underneath her breath. If she was lucky, maybe Vilgax would kill all the Tennysons. Of course that was _supposed_ to be _her_ job, and she would be a bit miffed at having vengeance stolen from her like that, but whatever, so long as it got done she could kill this Vilgax guy later and even it up. As much as she was starting to feel possessive about _her_ little murder victims, there was still the big picture to look at.

All that fighting woke up the Rustbucket's inhabitants, and Charmcaster got the shock of her life seeing the _grandfather_ with the Omnitrix instead of Ben! And using it with way more skill than the brash kid had ever managed, too! The older Ben still had his Omnitrix, though, and the older Gwendolyn had her magic... interesting. And probably bad. The grandfather was potentially more dangerous than the rest of the Tennyson lot, being more mature. She wasn't sure she liked it, but she didn't hate it enough to try another rewind immediately. Rewinds were a last resort. God forbid she ever see another universe with the goddamn Coalition again, or a Doppelcaster with a bat.

Vilgax ended up fleeing minus his pride, and Charmcaster got to suffer through yet another interminable 'what the heck are an extra Ben and Gwen doing here?' session. She'd been through so damn many of them, and was beyond sick of it, besides being incredibly tired and ready to collapse into her bunk again. Going through the confusing discussion on autopilot, she did her best job faking complete ignorance until they all shrugged their shoulders and decided that, extra Tennysons or no extra Tennysons, they all needed sleep. Random craziness could be sorted out on the morrow, the grandfather decided authoritatively.

When she finally got to bed two hours past midnight, it was a lot more cramped, and she had to forcibly stop herself from grinding her teeth in aggravation. With Gwens and Bens paired together in their respective bunks, there was room for everyone, but her personal space was feeling intruded by all the extra mouth breathers she was forced to listen to while trying to get to sleep. It had seemed so normal, at first, and then twisted off into another needlessly complicated mess she didn't want to deal with. Target-rich environments sucked when missing any of the targets meant you lost the game. Sighing to herself, she closed her eyes and did her best to lose herself in blackness, trying to forget the rather weird image of sleeping older-Gwen's and older-Ben's arms unconsciously draped over their equally dead to the world younger counterparts. It was a strange scene, and one that awoke equally strange, unidentifiable emotions in her that she didn't care to think about.

When sleep came, she dreamed of Hairclip. Warm dreams with a happiness in them she'd never really known in the waking world. And when she woke up, she snapped into cold reality with bitter suddenness and innerly cursed herself angrily for the dreaming.

_Fuck_ Hairclip.

--

The next few days were a learning experience. So much was familiar and recognizable, but that only made it harder to spot and adjust to the differences. The kids, for instance... they were so polite and subdued around their grandfather it was unreal. They didn't dare seem to fight in front of him, and Charmcaster had been around the Tennyson trio long enough to know that for the younger versions of Ben and Gwen, fighting and arguing basically defined their relationship. Having them all be so nice to each other was oddly jittering to Charmcaster's nerves. Only when away from their grandfather for an hour or more did they seem to relax and turn into something like their normal selves, the brats Charmcaster knew and despised. At least, she told herself she despised them, but somehow she was glad whenever they acted like their old selves, instead of like these new eerie well-behaved children.

The older Gwendolyn and Ben seemed about the same as they had in previous appearances, including their memories being of a past where Ben had the Omnitrix. It didn't present too much of a problem; after all, the Tennysons were all willing to accept time travel, so why not alternate universes too? Gwendolyn was a little more withdrawn and cold than usual, but it wasn't enough to really get suspicious over. Even for Charmcaster, who lived, breathed, drank, ate, and pissed suspicion. Could've just been because Gwendolyn was deprived of her precious Kevy-wevy. Minor differences aside, the usual befriending routine worked fine for them as well as for the brats. She had her script and it worked just as well as it always did.

Max Tennyson was the biggie. In personality the same fluffy Santa slash James Bond twit he always was, but this time he had the raw power to back up his adventurous heroism follies. Old age didn't really matter so much when you switched bodies whenever things got exciting, and he used the Omnitrix with the adroitness of a tech-adept Plumber rather than with the recklessness of a hyper ten year-old boy. From Charmcaster's point of view, it was a dangerous alteration to the usual lineup of targets, and she didn't like it one bit. A kid playing hero was easy to trip up once you got him away from his support system of (slightly) more intelligent relatives. An ex-government agent playing hero was some scary shit. His gullibility was his biggest weakness, but that only went so far to counter his sheer competence in the face of physical obstacles.

A direct confrontation was right out. She refused to risk it this time around. Some sort of trick or trap was required. Maybe poison again. Of course, for all she knew one of the Omnitrix's alien forms had a built in poison immunity. Then Max'd just change once he realized he was poisoned, and probably figure out some way to cure himself, or at least mess up her plans real good before he timed out. Seduction was another idea, but this version of Max Tennyson seemed unaccountably indifferent to her best flirting moves. Had all the stress of the repeated rewinds messed with her sex appeal? God, she hoped not. She needed all the weapons she could get, and sexiness was as good as a knife in the right circumstances. Hours primping and girling herself up went unnoticed by the grandfather, even when the older Ben noticed and started staring at her with glazed eyes when he thought she wouldn't see.

All this delayed her usual murder routine and gave her excessive time to think and brood. This world was close to the one she was from, but not exactly the same one. She'd always thought about her plan in terms of trying to her best to succeed each time, but maybe that wasn't what she should be doing. After all, after the Tennysons were dead and her full powers came back, she'd still be stuck in an alternate universe. She could rewind at any time, but why bother killing the Tennysons in the first place if she didn't want to stick around? It seemed wasteful, to kill them for nothing. Pointless. It wasn't that she felt _bad_ about it or anything, but killing for its own sake was dumb. You had to have a point to it, if only emotional gratification. Any emotional rewards from killing had long ago been washed away by sheer repetition. She just wanted this whole thing over and done with.

She should just rewind every time she got into an alternate universe that wasn't her own, shouldn't she? But the differences could be so subtle, sometimes, it would be hard to tell if it was her home timeline or a divergence right away. And there was the increasing complications of rewinding with victims left unkilled, too.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized that the most logical course was simply to do what the first Doppelcaster had done, and clean up every universe she landed in as much as possible before the next rewind. From a purely emotionless standpoint it was the best way to make the plan work and bring everything to a close as soon as possible. On the other hand, that bitch with the bat had been a twisted freak. Charmcaster liked to think of herself as having more humanity than that, in her own heartless, selfish little way. _She_ didn't go through life robotically, doing her appointed tasks all detached and unfeeling. She cared, if only for and about herself, and because of that she wasn't going to put herself through all that shit, even if being more relaxed about things meant a few more rewinds in the long run. She'd get it right eventually. She _had_ to. There was no way every single rewind for the rest of her life could be a failure, right? She was better than that!

Finally, she decided to do more research and see exactly how much this universe differed from the one she knew and loathed. No point in throwing it away if it was good enough to live in, right? There didn't seem to be any doubles of her running around this time, which was in and of itself enough of a blessing to outweigh a hell of a lot of other drawbacks. Doppelcasters were ten times scarier than any Tennyson or Kevin, because she knew exactly how smart they were. They were _her_, after all, she thought to herself with a touch of bitter pride.

She'd just hang around for a bit and see what there was to see. That was what she'd do.

--

The lake again. Another fishing break, another familiar scene. This time, without the shopping trip, and without Kevin, both of which suited Charmcaster just fine. Ben and Gwen the younger were both more interested in swimming and splashing each other mock-angrily than in catching fish, and Gwendolyn was sunbathing. Charmcaster wouldn't have minded joining her but that would have meant taking off the coat. And the more rewinds she did, the more reluctant Charmcaster was to take the coat off... with so many identity issues to turn over in her head, she clung to what little sure identity she had left. Her coat defined her, as much as her white hair, or her magic, or her glib lying. So instead of working on her tan, she joined the older Ben and Max in hauling fish out of water with hooks on strings. She pretended the fish were Tennysons, and smirked in satisfaction whenever she caught one, yanking it out with a swift, unhesitating jerk. There was a time when watching them flop around helplessly as they suffocated would have also brought her some small joy, but now for some reason it only made her feel tired, and she didn't keep her eyes on them as they died.

Enough fish were caught for the grandfather to fix up, in his words, a 'fine savory stew with strong South American influences and a dash of the Orient,' and so the old man left them to perform his disgusting culinary black magic. A seemingly idle suggestion that Gwen help was initially ignored by Gwen pretending (Charmcaster was sure) to not hear him through all the splashing, but when yelled more firmly Gwen relinquished the aquatic battle and trailed after the fat man, face emotionless and feet wetly padding.

Charmcaster wasn't sure what made her make up an idle excuse to follow after and spy on the two of them. It was just an urge. Maybe she just didn't want to be alone with the older Ben for too long without a preoccupying activity, he _was_ still giving her rather awkward sidelong looks after all her flirtacious behavior. He'd probably misinterpreted it as being directed at him, sigh. No matter, she had time to work through it all. She had enough time for anything these days, it was preventing that infinite time from swallowing up her precarious sanity that was steadily seeming more like the real challenge.

That Max Tennyson was fully prepared and equipped to debone, descale, and whatever else you de-did to a fish to make it edible wasn't surprising. That he would badger one of the brats into helping wasn't much of a shocker either, the old man never seemed to realize how disgusted everyone else was with his cooking experiments. Some sort of mental blocker in that area, definitely. The only surprising thing, really, was that Gwen wasn't complaining loudly about it. More of that creepy polite silence crap.

Why the hell were the brats so _quiet_?

No, not quiet... not in general. They were, Charmcaster realized, specifically quiet around their grandfather. For whatever reason. Huh.

She found a good shady hiding spot to duck into and watch as grandfather and granddaughter went into the Rustbucket, the door hanging open. Far enough to be stealthy, close enough to hear. Not that there was much to hear, they were just going to cook... still, the private moment might give her some little insight into their characters she was missing. Frustratingly, she couldn't see what they were doing, only having glimpses of their backs now. Well, being safely hidden had its price.

"...there's so many people around now, they could see us," Gwen was mumbling,

"We'll just do a quickie, it'll be fine," Max soothed her. "Or I could get Ben, if you're really not up to it..." His thick fingers coiled through her short hair, stroking.

"No, that's okay, I'll do it," Gwen said, nearly whispering.

Charmcaster frowned. This didn't sound like cooking prep to her. What were they talking about? She wished she could get a better look at them without risking being seen. As moments passed without talking or any readily identifiable sounds, she waited and waited, fingers tapping impatiently on a knee. Screw it. A quick peek wouldn't hurt. She'd just look real quick, and then duck back before they caught her.

Well, that was weird. It looked suspiciously like... but no, it just had to look like that because of the angle or something. She _had_ to be seeing that wrong. Everything she'd learned about the Tennysons made her instinctively reject the conclusion the sight before her was drawing her towards.

Unable to help herself, but with a sinking feeling in her stomach that made her wish she could, she got a little closer still, staring, making sure she saw everything. All they had to do was turn their heads and they'd see her. But no, they were... occupied.

Was Gwen actually... no way.

She _was_.

Holy freaking shit.

That sick bastard! What was most upsetting about it was the way Gwen did it without any signs of her usual spunky know-it-all attitude. She was hesitant about it, and from a practical point of view not very good at it, but she was obedient. Resigned. As if she'd done it many times before and there could be no other course of action, stuck in her own kind of repeated hell.

Everything about the way the kids behaved made sense now. 'Or I could get Ben.' Yeah. Gwen did it so her cousin didn't have to, and it was a sacrifice that was, in its twisted little way, rather touching, even to someone as heartless as Charmcaster.

The perverse abuse _should_ have struck Charmcaster as incredibly funny, overall. But it didn't. Somehow it just made her sick. She'd thought there couldn't be anything worse than Cannibalcaster, but there was, and she'd landed right in the middle of it. Utterly gross. The very existence of it offended her and made her want to go axe crazy. Which wasn't completely outside the realm of possibility, if only she could kill the man while he was sleeping. Awake was too big a risk, with that stupid watch on him. And hell, the brats might even thank her for it.

She wandered away from the scene, dazed, wishing she could burn out the part of her memory that kept the nasty little scene flashing before her eyes over and over. This was a whole new tangle in her web to deal with. Had to look on the bright side, though, she'd definitely learn to enjoy killing again before this was all over. She never would've believed it possible, if she hadn't seen it with her own eyes.

It couldn't have started just at the point of the initial rewind spell. No, by the way they were acting, it had to have been going on for longer than that. That meant that the screwups in the timeline went further back than they should've. Crap. Was this her punishment for rewinding from the Coalition universe, she wondered? Some sadistic deity laughing at her and going 'Oh, you thought THAT was bad? Alright, let's see how you like THIS instead!'

Wait.

Why did she even _care_?

It was just the brats, they were going to die anyway. Hell, she should be _thanking_ the geezer for putting up a divide between himself and the kids. All the easier to pick them off now, probably. She should be _happy_!

Why wasn't she happy?

Aggravated with herself, she went back to the lakeshore and dragged Ben the Younger away for a private chat, to confirm her suspicions about the timeline.

It took a lot of bullying, but in the process it brought Ben out of his shell and made him act almost like his normal arrogant self again, so she kind of enjoyed it. He wouldn't say exactly what had been going on, but that wasn't important, she could guess and fill in the blanks that he left open in his shame. What he did share was that 'it' had been happening all summer, and before that as well. It'd started when they were younger. As they grew, their grandfather's attentions had drifted away from Ben and focused more on Gwen. Ben was just a backup fuck now, when Gwen wasn't available.

And though Ben didn't say it, Charmcaster could tell that the greatest shame in the whole situation was that Ben let Gwen be used, so he could get out of it, and Gwen encouraged this, to protect Ben. God, it would take a shrink years to sort through all the issues. Even without powers, though, Gwen was still trying to be the practical one and keep Ben from getting hurt. It would've ripped up Charmcaster's heart if she'd acknowledged having one, which she didn't. She had to keep reminding herself of that throughout the talk.

Ben had tried fixing things by rushing headlong into the police, by framing his grandfather for other crimes, by a thousand brash stunts. But it had only earned the poor kid a reputation as a juvenile delinquent, and the grandfather had enough government connections to cover anything incriminating up. The parents on both sides were, of course, completely absorbed in desperately self-serving denial.

The Omnitrix only made it worse. Yet another little continuity whack was that Ben had _never_ had the Omnitrix this time around. It'd always been the grandfather. And in between using it to fight crimes, Max used it to explore the varied possibilities of alien-human intimacy. In a freaky sort of way, it was in keeping with the man's interest in exploring the exotic. As for the kids, it only cowed them more. Bad enough to be molested by a man bigger and stronger than them... now they had to deal with being molested by a man with freaking _superpowers_.

It really wasn't fair, for the grandfather to be screwing with the roles like this. _She_ was the bad guy, and after everything they'd put her through, if anyone was going to ruin the lives of the Tennysons, it was gonna be _her_! And _he_ was one of the good guys, he was so fit for the job of sappy mentor it was insane, so why was he playing closet pervert when he was so much better at the other stuff?! Everything was all turned upside down now, and her disgust was rapidly giving way to anger. How dare he mess the brats up this much when they should be learning how to fear _her_, bow down before _her_, beg _her_ for mercy instead!

Not that she would have molested them.

Jesus Christ, a girl had to _have_ some limits, right?

That was all it was. There were limits, and Max Tennyson had stepped beyond them. It was intolerable. She _refused_ to let it pass.

The only question was, what to _do_ about it.

The victims were too repressed to be of any use to her. On the other hand, there were always the seemingly more normal teenaged Gwendolyn and Ben. Maybe they could be willing accomplices, united in a common cause. She'd find a way to use that to get the grandfather's Omnitrix on _her_ wrist, and work from there. Killing the brats this time around would be super easy, it would be freaking merciful! Yeah, she could do this. At the least, she could off the grandfather, since he deserved it so bad. And she'd just see what happened from there.

Her attempt at wrangling the teenage Tennysons after supper didn't go so well, though.

"I can't believe you would say something like that!"

"I knew you were a liar and a jerk, but this is a new low, even for you."

The twin stares of cold disgust seemed to pierce right through her. Ironically, telling them the truth did a better job of reminding them of the level of manipulative deceit she was capable of than telling them lies had ever done. Like all the bad karma she'd built up had saved itself just for this moment, the single most hilariously inappropraite time to strike back. It was stupid of her, she should have seen it coming. But she'd been so caught up in, HAH, _rightness_ of her cause that she hadn't thought through how they'd logically react. And was left babbling like an idiot, scrambling for lines, for a place in her script.

"Look, if I wanted to lie to you guys I could come up with something a _lot_ more believable than _that_! I know you don't wanna believe me because you wuv your grampy-wampy but this guy, he's not the grampa you knew, he's someone different. He's a total freak. Spy around a little, keep your eyes open, and I swear you'll see-"

When Gwen punched her, she was too shocked to even think about dodging, or blocking, or even rolling with the blow. No, she just got suckerpunched and stumbled to the ground, gawking, feeling a little warm trickle of blood flow down from the corner of her mouth. Total bewilderment flickered and was replaced by a strong hot wash of rage, which was in turn replaced equally rapidly by a settled disgusted apathy. She got up, wiped the blood off her mouth, and brushed herself off.

Ben had to play white knight, as always. "Gwen, come on, she didn't deserve that! It's just words, let it go."

"She deserves plenty worse," Gwen snapped, turning and walking off before Charmcaster could think up a suitable mocking retort. Charmcaster watched her go, helplessly.

"Fine," she muttered with a sigh. "I should've known it was a mistake to try to help losers like you. You're on your own, then."

"Charmcaster, wait-" Ben started, grabbing for her shoulder.

She shrugged him off. "Don't touch me." She pulled her coat tighter around her, and left Ben to stand there and look conflicted.

--

The next few days were some of the most uncomfortable of Charmcaster's life. Everyone was twitchy around everyone else for various reasons... except for Max Tennyson, whose jolly, all-embracing sociability was even more disgusting and grating than usual. The older Tennyson kids seemed determined to hang around their grandfather as much as possible, as if to prove to Charmcaster and themselves that there wasn't a bit of truth to the accusations. Max got a lot more cunning and subtle about how he snuck off with the younger ones, but he still did it. Charmcaster knew. She'd grown far too used to faking friendship and then spying on said 'friends' to let things like that slip by her. Gwendolyn and older-Ben might've been fooled, but they _wanted_ to be fooled, and nothing was easier than putting up a false front to people who wanted to believe in it. She knew that better than the rest of them and derived some sense of superiority from it.

But it still pissed her off, how Gwendolyn had hit her. She decided the best thing to do would be to get her back, Charmcaster style. She borrowed the younger Gwen's audio recorder, and the next time Max had one of his little indiscretions, she got audible proof of it. Then once she had another chance to be alone with Gwendolyn and older-Ben, she played it for them, and enjoyed their horrified reactions.

"She, she could've faked that with magic," Gwendolyn said, grasping at straws.

"If she still had magic to use, wouldn't she have used it at the start when she talked about it the first time?" Ben suggested reasonably.

"Exactly," Charmcaster agreed with a smirk. "Believe it or not, guys, this time... I'm the _good_ guy. I know, it cracks me up too."

She let them have a moment looking at each other and being uncomfortable, giving time for the full gravity of the situation to sink in.

"So... what're we gonna do about it?" Ben asked finally.

Gwen answered unhesitatingly. "We go to the police."

"Time travelling alternate universe versions of the kids who're being molested go to the police and serve as witnesses," Charmcaster said dryly. "Yeah, I'm sure that'll go down just awesomely."

"What else is there _to_ do?"

"We have to kill him," she suggested to Gwendolyn levelly, watching the girl's eyes widen.

"Are you nuts?!" Ben blurted out. "We can't do that!"

"Try to hold off on the knee-jerk reaction and think for a second." Charmcaster was calm as ice. She had 'em now. Time to reel the fishies in. "Your wussier selves' parents are in total denial. Little Ben already tried telling the truth, a ton of times, and it never did any good. He's labelled a liar and a troublemaker now, lucky him. Your grandfather's used his government connections to cover up anything that might've incriminated him outside of that. There's no way he could go to jail. And you know he's not gonna stop. Perverts stick with what they're good at, no matter how many times they reform or whatever bullshit they call it every time they wriggle off the hook. So you've got two choices. You can walk away from it and get back to your own place in the universe and let these other yous be sexually abused... _or_... you can put a stop to it. You know, the way heroes do."

"Murder isn't heroic," Gwendolyn said softly, but her tone was more understanding than before. She looked halfway won over.

"I'll go for door number three," Ben announced grimly, hand over his watch.

"Don't be an idiot, you can't _fight_ your way out of this!" Charmcaster snapped desperately, hoping to stop him before he did something typically... Benish.

"Why not? I can fight my way out of everything else." Whack, flash. "SPIDERMONKEY!"

"Do you _have_ to say the name of the alien you turn into?" Charmcaster asked, mildly pained by the intense dorkiness. He was even _posing_, for God's sake!

"Yes. Yes, I do," Ben deadpanned. "Now if you'll _excuse_ me, I have a pervert to set straight!"

Ben rushed off to save the day, leaving Charmcaster and Gwendolyn looking at each other blankly.

"He's going to do something stupid, isn't he?" Charmcaster asked, rubbing her face.

"That's what he does best," Gwendolyn responded, a tiny sad smile on her lips.

"It's not gonna work. It might even make things worse. The old guy could kick us out... we don't have anywhere to go..."

"You seem pretty self-sufficient. I'm sure you'll adapt."

"So sue me for bothering to care about you jerks."

"You should come up with more plausible lines," Gwendolyn shot back, her tone almost friendly. "These latest ones aren't very believable."

Charmcaster stared, more than a little unnerved. Had Gwendolyn really seen through her completely? Was she remembering things, past loops, like Kevin had? God, that was the last thing she needed to deal with right now. Well, there was nothing for it but to play the role to the hilt anyway. There were so many versions of herself floating around that it wasn't hard to really sink into the role of well-meaning ex-criminal in her head. She could make herself believe it with positively disturbing ease by now.

"They're not just lines. I really do care. God knows why. The geezer crossed a line that shoulda never been crossed, even with hopeless twits like you two."

"I'm sure you move the line whenever it's convenient, though, don't you?"

A series of loud crashes and other, less identifiable but equally violent sounds rang out.

"Guess the epic fight of Omnitrix user versus Omnitrix user's starting," Charmcaster stated blandly. "You gonna help... out?" she trailed off, as Gwendolyn walked out in the middle of the sentence without even bothering to reply. "Hn. Rude little bitch. Fine, I'll just arrange for _you_ to die next," she muttered. Even she wasn't sure if she really meant it or not. She trailed after, intending to get a seat in the metaphorical front row and keep an open eye for murder opportunities.

The fight lasted long enough for Ben to time back out into normal... after which Max Tennyson promptly grabbed Ben's wrist and smacked a series of buttons that somehow completely disabled Ben's Omnitrix. That was in addition to staying in alien form himself, overriding the time limit with some sort of preprogrammed settings. That Plumber know-how was certainly being put to sickeningly effective use. Being _disappointed_ to see Ben lose was still a new, weird sensation for Charmcaster. After that, Gwendolyn wasn't much use... however powerful her magic was, it wasn't enough to fight a Plumber with seemingly full power over the capabilities of the Omnitrix. The cold-faced redhead yielded of her own volition at her opponent's urging.

But the worst of it wasn't the fight itself, but the grandfather's reaction to it all afterwards.

"There, now, I'm glad you both got that out of your systems," he said cheerfully, beaming at them as though they'd just been play-wrestling or something equally silly. His tone was just as loving, just as grandfatherly as ever. Frankly, it made Charmcaster want to spit nails, and she could only imagine how the Tennyson kids were feeling. "Look, I know you may be a little upset that this world isn't the same as yours in every little detail, but you don't have the right to go around changing things. You could cause all sorts of time-space fluctuations and other nasty side effects if you mess with the universe too much. Just let it go, okay? You're still my guests and I'm still happy to play the host for you kids."

Gwendolyn and older-Ben were struck utterly speechless, while the younger Gwen and Ben didn't dare say anything, eyes to the ground, trying to melt into the scenery and disappear. It was left to Charmcaster to express the necessary outrage, and the irony of that wasn't lost on her.

"Are you out of your fucking mind?" she demanded, pronouncing each word slowly and distinctly to be sure his old ears didn't miss any of it. "You abuse these kids, and you just expect the rest of us... including older versions of the kids you're abusing!... to just look the other way and get along with you?! You're a total nutjob!"

"You just don't understand the situation. It's okay, I know it seems strange, but I'm not abusing them! I love my grandkids and I'd do anything for them!" And by his tone and face, he either really believed it, or was just as good a liar as Charmcaster. She didn't know whether to be scared or impressed. "Isn't that right, kids?"

"Yeah. We're totally happy the way we are. We love you, Grampa," young-Gwen and young-Ben said, robotically, the responses seemingly hardwired into them by long repetition. Their faces were utterly devoid of emotion.

"Bullshit!" older-Ben exploded, slapping at his wrist over and over like it was the Omnitrix's fault it wasn't working. "Come on, _work_, you son of a bitch," he mumbled at the device desperately. He was almost cute when he was swearing, it was so unlike him.

"Maybe we can't beat you up," Gwendolyn stated, face twitching as its impassive mask strove to conceal all sorts of passionate emotions Charmcaster didn't care to guess at, "but you can't make us stay with you and play nice, either."

The grandfather blinked. "Why, kids, I wouldn't want to make you stay if you want to go. I'm your host. I'm trying to help you guys. But you're free to leave whenever you want, if you really think you're better off on your own."

"We could go to the police," older-Ben threatened, giving up on the watch.

"They won't listen," younger-Ben snapped with sullen despair, a barest touch of his old spark back. "They never do."

"Ben!" the grandfather's voice cracked, sharp as a whip.

Younger-Ben looked down at the ground, back to victim mode again. "Sorry, Grampa. I mean, they won't listen 'cause I've lied about a lotta stuff so they know anything involving me is usually my fault."

"Well, if they're really _happy_ like this," Charmcaster said sarcastically, "who are we to stand in the way of love?" Her lips twisted in a sneer. "I guess I'll hang around and enjoy the free food a little while longer. The rest of it isn't any of my business." She gave Gwendolyn and older-Ben a meaningful look, hoping they'd interpret it properly. The old guy still had to die, after all.

"If we can't stop this, we might as well keep an eye on things," Gwendolyn said slowly, icily.

Her cousin nodded in reluctant agreement, looking grim. "Fine."

Outwardly, Charmcaster was sour and grumpy, but inwardly, she was dancing with glee. Yesssss. They were hers, now. Her little fishies, all ready to swallow the bait and murder their own grandfather. This was gonna be _so_ sweet.

--

Charmcaster stood over the corpse of the old pervert, and quietly rejoiced. She allowed herself the luxury of a wicked grin, watching the old coot bleed out, twitch, and die slowly. The old satisfaction at beating a foe was back again, stronger than ever, it was a natural high she'd missed so much. All the better that she'd had help from the Tennysons to do it, too. Wasn't that just beautiful, just poetic?

It'd taken so long, so many more weeks of arguing over the necessity of it and the practical methodology than she'd expected. But this moment in time made it worth it. This moment, when she stood victorious against the enemy with the help of the enemy's own spawn, and knowing that even the most innocent person on the planet couldn't blame her for it, because _this_ time it'd been freaking _justified_. Even if they _wanted_ to say something bad about it, what the hell _could_ they say? She'd left them no moral ammo to fire their mouths off with! Whatever else came, she'd remember this triumph with black joy.

She did not think of herself as a traditional supervillain, but the urge to cackle maniacally was definitely rising.

Risiiiiiiiinnnggg.

Then she turned around to say something snarky to Gwendolyn, and got a face of zappy pink magic that blasted her straight into lala land. When she came to, suffering from an immense headache and a creepy tingling sensation in her extremities, she was tied up in the Rustbucket.

This immediately set off her panic alarm.

No Doppelcaster? Thank God. No Doppelcaster. No bat. She was okay. Probably. Hopefully. Maybe. Who the hell was that talking? Blearily, she tried to focus. It was easier to hear than it was to intelligibly interpret what she was hearing, but after a few moments her mind focused, outpacing her still glazed eyes.

"_Gwen, you did a good job._"

It was a little tinny. A recording. Ten year-old Ben's voice, Charmcaster realized vaguely.

Click, whirr, click. "_Gwen, you did a good job._"

Click, whirr, click. "_Gwen, you did a good job._"

Then Charmcaster's eyes caught up with the rest of her. She saw Gwendolyn, leaning casually against one wall of the vehicle, holding an audio recorder, eyes to it, face smooth and calm. She played the clip, did a rewind, then played it again. Over and over and over.

Click, whirr, click. "_Gwen, you did a good job._"

Click, whirr, click. "_Gwen, you did a good job._"

Click, whirr, click. "_Gwen, you did a good job._"

Gwendolyn realized her captive was awake and slowly looked up and over to meet Charmcaster's gaze. And as those cold green eyes met hers, she was suddenly even more afraid than before, though she couldn't say why.

_You'd have to be insane to start with to get through this without any possibility of cracking up_, a nasty little memory whispered into Charmcaster's mind. She desperately wished she'd gone to the bathroom before killing the old man. She had to go now, bad, and it wasn't looking like there was gonna be a chance any time soon.

Click, whirr, click. "_Gwen, you did a good job._"

"H-hey there," Charmcaster said with a bit of a quaver in her voice, trying to be calm and not really making it. She was scared, Gwendolyn knew it, everything was fucked. Again. Just like with the first Doppelcaster. God, she was so cared.

Gwendolyn carefully, almost reverently set the recorder aside, and stepped closer, looking Charmcaster up and down. "Comfy?"

"Not really."

The corners of Gwendolyn's mouth twitched upwards. "Good."

"Why're you doing this to me? We helped each other, I helped you get rid of that old perv, you _owe_ me..."

"I owe you a lot," Gwendolyn agreed calmly. "Which debt should I pay back first, you think?"

"Which... debt?" Charmcaster murmured, confused.

Gwendolyn sat down, settling herself in comfortably like she expected it to be a long talk. Well, thank God for that at least. If they were talking, there wasn't torturing. Or so Charmcaster frantically hoped. "I guess we could start with the most recent one. A person I loved, trusted, and depended on for my whole life suddenly got exposed as a horrible monster of a person... at least, according to this reality. He could've made that choice in any universe. He didn't in the one I grew up in, but he still _could_ have. I trusted him with everything. Everything, Charmcaster. And it could have turned out like this. Do you know what that feels like? To have someone you love that much ripped down from the pedestal you didn't even know you had them on?" The words were phrased passionately, but stated with an almost clinical detachment. It was freaking creepy, a lot worse than screaming rage or tears.

"Y-yeah, I mean-" Charmcaster started to say automatically, trying to get back to a script. _Any_ script.

"That's a lie," Gwendolyn interrupted smoothly. "If you've ever loved anyone besides yourself, I'll shave my head."

"So you think I'm some kind of uncaring monster?" Charmcaster accused, eyes narrowing. The injustice of her situation was starting to annoy, now that she figured she wasn't in any immediate physical danger. "After all I did to help you? Fuck you, then. Where's Ben? Where're the brats?"

"Outside. Now that that nasty little situation's been dealt with, I sealed up the Rustbucket so we could have a little... private time. Just you and me. Doesn't that sound nice?"

"Awesome. How about you untie me, I'll fix us some tea and muffins." She was unable to stop the heated sarcasm from leaking out.

"You never told me the end of your spider story the first time, either," Gwendolyn went on. "That's why I made you say it the second time, so I could get the ending. Well, that, and to make sure it really was the version of you I knew and owed. You got a few of the details switched around between tellings. You need to watch that. The devil's in those, ya know."

Charmcaster's eyes widened. Oh shit. Gwendolyn _did_ remember... but wait, what the hell was the bitch remembering? Gwendolyn had gotten her to tell the spider story in this universe once, sure... but the only other time she'd ever babbled that made up story to anyone in any universe was to a ten year-old Gwen, not a teenage Gwen! Unless... hm, maybe this Gwendolyn had had an encounter with a different Charmcaster, a Doppelcaster who'd done other things in other loops? Goddammit. Was Gwendolyn blaming her for shit she hadn't even done, now? Head spinning with too many possibilties to account for, and cursing at all time travel and alternate universes and clones and all the rest of it, she tried, once again, to get a grasp on things with her captor.

"Look, I don't know what you think I have or haven't done," she said slowly, careful to use a reasonable and mature tone, "but I've never done anything to you guys since Hex put the curse on me, except for this thing with your grandfather-"

"That's a lie." The response came a bit colder and quicker this time. Charmcaster swallowed despite herself.

"Why don't you tell me what you _think_ I did, and we go from there, okay?" she tried suggesting with as little hostility as possible.

Gwendolyn sneered. "You're being really careful now, but you're being careful way too late for it to matter. You should've been careful earlier on, when it would've actually made a difference. I've had years of living without a grandfather... without a _cousin_... of blaming myself for them being dead, all thanks to you."

"What the hell are you talking about, I've _never_ seriously hurt Ben!"

"THAT'S A FUCKING LIE!" Gwendolyn screamed, almost pouncing forward till their faces were barely an inch apart. Gwendolyn stared at her with feral rage, teeth bared. "Everything you say is a lie," she hissed with predatory hate, eyes practically burning the intent meaning of it into Charmcaster, before calming back down and leaning back to her seat.

Charmcaster's eyes were so wide they felt like they'd never blink again. Her heart was a jackhammer. A tiniest bit of dampness between her legs told her she'd wet herself, and possibly the most horrible thing was that she was too goddamn scared to care.

_Everything I say is a lie, haven't you figured that out yet?_

"B-but how..." she whimpered helplessly, confused. "I don't get it. You were younger then. You were, like, ten. Or something. You'd have to be the younger version to remember _that_... it's the only way it makes sense..."

Gwendolyn stared again, this time in disbelief. "You're kidding, right?" Charmcaster's confused silence prompted her to keep going. "Even _you_ can't possibly be _that_ self-centered." Still, Charmcaster had no response, so Gwendolyn kept on talking. "What the hell do you think happened to me after you did your little rewind escape trick? Are you seriously so wrapped up in yourself that you think the universe stops existing once you're out of it, and only starts once you're in it again? My God, you _are_, aren't you? It never occurred to you that maybe, just maybe, the rest of the world keeps going on after you leave it? Well, it does." Gwendolyn leaned down a little, lowering her head and clasping her hands, losing herself in reminiscence. "I ran in the dark through the bugs for a long time. It's a miracle I didn't die, really. But when I finally got out, I found out that Grampa and Ben and Kevin hadn't gotten any miracles of their own. I wasn't there to see exactly how it went down, but by the time I found them, they were all dead. Just bloody messes. That second you was still around, though. So we had a little chat." The 'chat' was pronounced sharp as a newly-whetted knife. "She told me everything. To make fun of me, I think. Then she tried to kill me." Gwendolyn looked up, and smiled. "I got her first, though."

"Lucky you," Charmcaster mumbled dazedly. She didn't have the faintest idea how to get out of this. All she could do was hope that Gwendolyn wasn't as crazy as the average Doppelcaster was. Gwen was some kind of hero, right? Right?!

"Lucky me," Gwendolyn agreed. "The years after that were pretty rough. I saw a lot of therapists. I kept thinking, if only I had been better at magic, I could've saved them, you know? And then I had a run-in with a weird relative. An energy being. She wanted to help me harness my powers better. Said I was just like her. Well, it wasn't like I had anything left to lose, so I went with it." Gwendolyn smiled again, and this time there was a faint but notable pink glow in her teeth, in her eyes. "The aliens like her... and, well, me, I guess... we're different. It's not that we don't care. We do. Just in different ways, and about different things. I went through the transformation process pretty rapidly. Even quicker than my grandmother-mentor thought was wise. But I needed the power. The power to understand what you did, how you did it, and why. I'd say the upgrade was worth it, to be ready when your time magic screwup sucked me back into another one of your murder scenarios. Sometimes, though, my human half still slips out through the cracks. In times of intense stress. I apologize for that."

"Oh, that's totally okay!" Charmcaster blustered, manic in her fright. "I completely forgive you, I really do! Just... just do whatever you feel you need to do for us to be even, okay, and then I'll help you get back to your own universe. Or you can stay here! With the younger you, and the younger Ben, and the other Ben who I guess is from a totally different universe... you haven't clued him in on that? No, of course not, too much trouble! You can stay here with your family and everyone'll be happy!"

The pink glow was throbbing almost obscenely now. "Happy. Right. I'll just forget how many times you've killed me, and Ben, and my grandfather. And how you set us all against each other. And how you manipulated and lied to us, over and over, and used our emotions for your own ends. I'll just forget aaaaall of that and let bygones be bygones. Is that what you want, Charmcaster?"

"Pl-please," Charmcaster begged, abandoning all dignity, "I'm sorry for what I've done-"

"That's a lie."

"Okay, I'm NOT sorry!" she half-screamed, tears blurring her eyes. "I'm not! But it was never supposed to be like this, I swear! I wish I'd never done any of it. This whole plan was insane, I messed with magic too big for me and I know that now. And it's not like any of it really _matters_, right?! It's, it's a _rewind_, you go back to the start, everything else is s'posed to be undone..."

"I told you, it doesn't work like that. Don't you get it? The universe doesn't revolve around you. None of them do. They don't start and stop with your rewinds." The throb was moving like the blobs in a lava lamp, writhing, the sheer power pouring forth effortlessly from Gwendolyn was near-blinding. Her hand moved. To what, Charmcaster couldn't tell, through her tears and the shining, until after Gwendolyn had already picked it up.

It was a bat.

A very familiar bat.

"Your double tells me you have some sentimental attachment to this. So, nothing you do really matters if you rewind after it, right?"

Charmcaster's eyes widened in horror. Her mouth gaped. "P-please," was all she could think of to say, just before the bat smashed her skull in.

--

Gwendolyn dropped the bloody bat casually. It clanged and rolled on the floor, but she was already reaching for the recorder, completely ignoring the still warm and twitching body of her enemy, now that revenge had been acquired.

Click, whirr, click. "_Gwen, you did a good job._"

Five years she had listened to that. The only remnant of Ben she'd had left to cling to. Funny, how she hadn't realized how incredibly important he'd been to her until after his death. That had hit harder than with Grampa, if only because she'd already been aware, to some extent, of how much she loved Grampa.

Then there was Kevin to think about.

What could have been.

What she'd deliberately avoided, having seen how potentially dangerous he could be when pushed into a corner.

Maybe, if she hadn't seen all that, she would have been able to date him and fall in love. Maybe, if she hadn't seen what this universe's Grampa was like, she'd be able to continue missing her own old, dead Grampa with unmitigated sorrowful affection. Maybe, maybe, maybe... a thousand maybes, and each one more meaningless than the last.

She'd done what she'd meant to do, and a little extra besides. The rest of it wasn't her concern. She couldn't let human concerns tie her down too tightly. That way only led to more hurting, and she'd hurt enough. She'd hurt enough.

Erasing the five year-old message on the recorder almost made her heart ache. But she did it, and she took her time putting a new message on it, wording it carefully and precisely. She'd always been the logical one. Now she was the very epitome of logic, more than ever, and she continue to use it to help the people who needed it the most. Even if they didn't know they needed it. She'd put an end to the endless rewinds and all that came with them, with as humble an instrument as this. Less accomplished magicians required all sorts of fancy arcane tools. She was a master of the arcane energies, though, and she imprinted her will directly onto the recorder. It would go to where it needed to be, and be found by who it needed to be found by. One way or another. The recorder was hidden in the right place, sealed away from background damage by minor protective glyphs, and then Gwendolyn dug in Charmcaster's pouch for the tape.

Ah, yes, there it was.

Gwendolyn had long ago decided it didn't matter what happened to her when she used it. The spell wasn't designed for her, and so any number of colorful nasty things could happen. All of them irrelevant. Honestly, she didn't care what happened. If she died, she'd get to see Ben and Grampa again... the Ben and Grampa she knew and loved, not these otherworld fakes. If she lived, that was fine too. Whatever.

Yet, before she said it, some other words spilled out, words she hadn't meant to say. They just came.

"Goodbye, Ben. Bye, Grampa. I love you. Rewind."


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Ben woke to the sound of Charmcaster screaming. It hit a well-honed nerve in him, memories of heroism and danger and people almost hurt, almost killed, but not... because he'd acted fast enough. And so, while normally he woke up as groggy and reluctantly as anyone else, this time, he snapped fully awake in an instant, and was on his feet and trying to assess the situation the instant after that. In a panicky kind of way, but still.

The look on Charmcaster's face was haunting. Horror-stricken, wild, absolutely terrified. The way her head was jerking around it seemed like she wasn't even sure where she was. But then her eyes narrowed and her face iced over, and she seemed to regain her senses. Not less scared, but _hiding_ it, like an animal that didn't want predators to know how weak it was. It was somehow just as bad, in its own way. He'd never seen her look like that before, even in a fight. By then, everyone else was awake, and they were all staring at her. Grampa and Gwendolyn with concern, Kevin and the younger Bens and Gwens with irritation.

"S-sorry," she stammered, trying for dignified and failing by a mile. "I just had a, a bad dream, that's all. A really bad dream," she repeated, as if to reassure herself that that was all that it'd been. "I'm gonna get some air." And with that excuse Charmcaster fled, not quite running but definitely moving faster than a casual walk.

He shared equally bewildered looks with all of his relatives old and new (and Kevin).

"She didn't look so great. Someone should go after her." Grampa, of course, always the fatherly type.

A subdued chorus of groans from everyone else in the Rustbucket responded.

"I guess I'll go," Ben forced himself to say. "I'm the only one still dressed besides Kevin." Everyone else was in pajamas. "And he's not really the comforting type," he added with a smirk.

Kevin muttered something mocking about rescuing chicks from nightmares in a high-pitched voice, but Ben didn't listen, knowing it would only piss him off if he did. He went out after Charmcaster, hoping to find her before she'd wandered too far, and chuckled to himself a little as he heard Gwendolyn berating Kevin before he shut the door.

It wasn't hard to find her. She didn't seem to know where she was going. Stumbling in one direction, then another, looking around in that confused, jerky way she'd done back in the Rustbucket. It made him feel sorry for her. She really was messed up. It had to've been some crazy dream to freak out someone like her. She'd always been poised and condescending when she wasn't playing nice to get something she wanted, even when she'd ended up living with them all. But now she was acting like she wasn't even Charmcaster at all. At least, not the Charmcaster _he_ knew and... hated? No, he didn't really have any strong hostility to her even if she was one of the bad guys. He couldn't say he felt anything for her at all, except maybe a little pity at the moment.

He thought about walking up and putting a hand on her shoulder, but decided that would be bad, with how she was acting. Instead, he stomped a little and deliberately broke a few sticks so she'd hear him coming, and stopped well away from her, but still in comfortable talking distance. She turned to look at him, but didn't say anything. Just looked, suspiciously. Whether she didn't want to talk to him, or just couldn't think of anything to say, he didn't know. He wasn't good at reading girls who were open and honest, let alone devious magic-using crook girls.

"Hi," he tried, uncertainly, as if the word could be used to screw him over somehow.

"Hi," she said back, blankly.

"So... that must've been some dream." He grinned wryly and reached up to smooth down his hair, twisted from partial bedhead.

She looked away. "Yeah." When he started to move closer, she looked back again, gaze sharp as a knife. "Sorry for busting up your sleep schedule, I'll be fine." It wasn't a welcoming tone, but something in Ben's gut told him he should stick around anyway.

"We just wanted to make sure you'd be okay. You gave us all a scare. You know, if you ever need to talk, or anything..."

Charmcaster grimaced, looking away again, eyes peering into the dark. Looking, searching almost. "Yeah, yeah. One big, happy, fucked up family."

"We're not fu- uh, messed up," Ben blurted instantly, the remark putting him on the defensive, but not in an angry way. His cheeks flushed at the barely-averted swear. It was embarrassing to parrot her words like that, and even more so to take it back halfway through. At least Kevin wasn't here, ugh. "We're just nice people who like to help other people."

She snorted, a laugh starting through her throat and then getting strangled before it could fully express itself. "Nice people. Right."

He let her disbelief slide. It was part and parcel of being a bad guy, he figured, to not understand that kind of stuff. "What're you looking for?"

"Enemies," she murmured, eyes still scanning all around, into the distance.

"There's no one here but us."

"As far as _you_ know," she sneered. "The ones you don't see till it's too late are the worst."

When she started to walk again, at a slower pace, feet seemingly placing themselves at random, he closed up enough to walk by her side with her. She was a lot calmer now, but still tense. He could tell by the way she held herself, beneath that jacket she never took off. He couldn't think of anything to say, and she didn't seem too eager to chat, so they just walked in silence for a little while, making a rough perimeter around the camp site. He figured she'd probably be ready for bed again after she tired herself out walking, and he didn't mind tiring himself out with her.

When they started to pass by a puddle of dark water, she stopped, staring into it. The reflection was clear enough to show both of them clearly, despite only having distant twinkling stars for light. Her face staring at itself looked almost sad, another new, unCharmcastery thing.

"Have you ever felt like..." she started, then changed her mind midsentence. "No, forget it. It's stupid." She kicked a rock into the puddle and walked on.

"Felt like what? Hey, don't be afraid to lay down some deep spiritual mojo if that's what's eatin' you. My cousin's not the only one with a brain in her head, ya know, even if she likes to think she is most of the time." His tone was joking, but when she finally responded after another, shorter silence, it was totally seriously.

"What makes us who we are?"

"Huh?" That was even further out into left field than he'd expected. "Why d'you have to ask? You're Charmcaster, and I'm Ben, and that other Ben is also Ben... okay, I guess it's kinda confusing having a couple twins around, but there's still the age difference, so we're easy to tell apart."

Her head was lowered to the ground, not looking at anything in particular, her strides slow enough to be almost nonexistent. "I used to think I knew who I was. What I was. It was... what's the word... implicit. It was implicit, I knew it all automatically without ever having to think about it. But things keep happening... things that make me think that maybe everything I knew is really just a bunch of crap. What makes us who we are? The choices we make, or the things we experience, or is it something else? Are we who we are because we say so and don't bother doubting it? If we start wondering if we're someone else, is that enough to make us lose who we are? You could tell me what I did yesterday, and what I was like as a person, but is that Charmcaster from yesterday the same as the Charmcaster I am right now, or a different one? If they're different, how many times can a person split before there's nothing left to divide by? If they're all the same, yesterday and today and tomorrow, then... then I think..."

"You think?" Ben prompted gently, head whirling with all the philosophical stuff she was loading on him. Well, he'd asked for it. He could tell this was somehow important to her, though. Maybe even a major crossroads in life for her. If he said the right thing, could he get her to stop being a bad guy? Would she still need to go to jail then anyway, for crimes enacted with magic that the legal system denied the existence of, or would there be a loophole to let her have a normal life like everyone else? She felt less like a bad guy and more like a victim now, despite all the bad things she'd done, and he wanted to help her get on the right track. Heck, if _Kevin_ could reform, _anyone_ could.

"I don't know. I don't know anything. I don't even know what I'm saying anymore." She rubbed her face with both hands, and this time Ben did put an arm on her shoulder comfortingly. She didn't seem to mind.

"I'm not a guru or anything. Grampa's probably better at this stuff. But so long as you like who you are right now, does it matter about all the other yous out there, or not out there?" Ben asked her.

"Like?" she asked him, with a twisted, confused tone, as if the concept had never, ever popped into her head before. "It's just... another piece of implicit bullshit, I guess. If I had to say I felt anything about myself right now, I'd say... I'm scared of myself. But that's fine. I'm scared of everyone else too," she hurried on, tone getting hysterical, "so that just makes it consistent!"

He expected her to cry. If she were a different kind girl, she would have. But she was a crook and a liar and a schemer, and maybe she didn't really have a heart of ice and snake venom, but she darn well tried her best to pretend she did. So instead, she just stood there, still and stiff as a tree, until she calmed down. Very awkwardly, unsure if he should really do it or not, he tried to put one arm around her for a halfhearted hug, but she shrugged him off.

"I'm going to bed," she announced abruptly, and started walking to the Rustbucket without even looking back at him. He gave her a polite goodnight, but if she heard, she didn't acknowledge it.

When they both got back and settled into their bunks, he closed his eyes, too jittery to really drop off instantly, but pretending anyway for the sake of politeness. A long time later, hours maybe, he opened his eyes again, and saw Charmcaster had her eyes opened too. She stared at the floor until she saw he was looking at her. Before he could even think of anything to say, she rolled over to face the side of the Rustbucket, her back to him.

--

"Hey, I was thinking about that stuff you said last night..." Ben started the next day, having had time to mull over everything in his head.

"Mm?" Charmcaster looked completely disinterested, but that had to just be an act.

"It reminded me of something I heard in an MTV toon once. It went something like... 'we're only what we remember of ourselves.' So yeah, I know that's a dumb place to get pithy wisdom from, but I think-"

"You should leave the thinking to your cousin," she interrupted dryly. "She's better at it." And with that, Charmcaster walked off, leaving him feeling like a complete dork.

What'd he done wrong? Was it just her time of the month, or what?! That was more or less what he asked Gwendolyn when he went to her for an opinion, although he put it as subtly as he knew how. She still laughed at him.

"This isn't a girl thing, you goof," she told him when she calmed down, her tone almost as lecturing as it had been in the earlier days, back before they'd hit puberty. "It's a bad guy thing. You know how touchy Kevin gets about his image, right? Well, it's the same with Charmcaster. She opened herself up to you last night, probably a lot more than she meant to. So now she's gotta act like you don't exist for a while, till her pride's all patched up. Don't worry about it. And _don't_ push her. Just keep on being you, and if she wants to talk, she'll come to you."

That sounded smart. He nodded agreement. "Yeah, okay, I can see that. You should've seen her last night, though. It was... really weird."

"How weird?" she asked, leaning in. His cousin tried to hide it, but she did have a little bit of a gossipy streak in her, like most girls did.

He coughed and looked away from her, fiddling with his short green jacket absentmindedly. "Remember that time you were trying to teach me how to dance? Equally weird as that."

"Ooohhh. Okay then," she murmured, looking anywhere but at him. That'd been one of those things that hadn't seemed to mean anything at the time, but had been something to try and think less and less about the older they got. There were a lot of little things like that between them. Not exactly bad or even uncomfortable, just... awkweird. "Anyway," she resumed with a business-like tone, "you can't get too close and start playing Ben the super therapist or anything, you know. We don't belong in this time, we can't stay. So it would be bad for her to get dependent on you."

Ben repressed a chuckle at the unlikely thought of Charmcaster being dependent on _anyone_. "I know. It's just... I want to help her, because I feel like it's what... _he'd_ do."

"Grampa?"

"Yeah. I mean, I know there's a Grampa in this time and all, but he's not _our_ Grampa, and I'm here so I still feel like I have to fill in, I guess."

She eyed him carefully. "Sometimes I wonder how much of what you do is because of him. Because of what happened to him. I'm glad you're trying so hard, Ben, but sometimes I miss that reckless kid you used to be..."

"Oh, come on! Gimme a break, you spent years trying to get me to stop being reckless. And now that I'm more mature and a better hero, you want me to go back to being the way I was? Besides... if I'd been more careful, like you'd always told me to be, maybe I could've-"

"Don't start with that again! Like I said before, if it's _your_ fault, it's _my_ fault too, and since you're not willing to admit it's my fault, then it's _no one's_ fault."

"Nnkay."

"Happy mediums, Ben. You can't be mature all the time, that leads to heart attacks. And you can't be childish all the time either, because that kind of self-centeredness leads to you being Kevin or Charmcaster."

"The first of which you think is hot," he pointed out logically, smirking as her cheeks went pink. "Something wrong with being hot?"

"The second of which is not hot, however, so-"

"Who says she's not hot?"

"AH _HAH_! I _KNEW_ IT!" she crowed with a grin, green eyes practically blazing in smug satisfaction.

Argh! He'd walked right into that one. He banged his head against the nearest hard object repeatedly.

"So now we both have crushes on hotties, meaning that neither of us can tease the other anymore," she insisted primly.

He glared at her. He _didn't_ have a crush, just because he didn't think Charmcaster was ugly! But that was an argument not worth getting into. "Or we could both make fun of each other equally."

His cousin raised an eyebrow. "Do you _really_ wanna go that road?"

Ben thought about it, and thought about how he was totally no match for Gwendolyn when it came to verbal witticism wars, and swallowed. "Okay. Hottie mockery is officially off limits. I think I'll celebrate by getting a bite to eat, of... whatever Grampa's cooking."

"Something aquatic, I think. I'll be right behind you, just gotta finish my upper respiratory for the day."

When he walked out of the Rustbucket, he almost bumped into Charmcaster, who was really close to the door. "Were you spying on us?!"

"Yeah, because there's nothing more interesting than your personal conversations," she snapped. He winced. Bad assumption on his part, even if it _was_ kinda reasonable. She _was_ a crook, after all! Was she gonna be mad at him, now? "Your grandfather forget the ketchup so I'm getting it for him."

Of course, that didn't mean she _hadn't_ been spying on them while being in the process of mustard-fetching, Ben noted to himself. "Alright, sorry. What's he cooking, anyway?" Grampa had felt like having a grill lunch, and had gone all out on the barbecue fixings, but he'd never asked what the main course was.

"Octopus hotdogs."

Even for someone who was more or less used to Grampa's culinary... eccentricities... it was difficult not to gag just at the thought. "Egh. Is that a real food?"

"Some sort of American-Japanese abomination hybrid, I think. He's serving it with a side of 'American' fried rice... which is rice with, like, ketchup, fried chicken, soy sauce, and eggs."

"How... nice," Ben finally managed, feeling greener by the second. "Tell you what, I'm gonna walk over to the gas station and grab some snacks. You want anything?"

"Please God yes!" she blurted out immediately and desperately. He grinned at her, and after a moment of reluctance she grinned back.

He bought her a couple Shrek twinkies, a large bag of vinegar potato chips, and a Sprite, and after that they were something like friends.

--

Ben knew Charmcaster didn't get a lot of sleep. Everyone knew that she yawned a lot lately and took catnaps during the day, but most of them put it down to laziness and excuses to avoid socializing. But he knew different. Whenever he went up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, whenever he got up early to do some random chore, whenever he just plain couldn't sleep, she was there. Pretending to sleep, but not really sleeping. Because when she was really sleeping, she sprawled out on her back. But when she was faking it, she always kept on one side or the other of her body, and held herself eerily straight, usually facing the wall.

Inevitably, she caught him looking at her again, on another late night when everyone else was dead asleep. And it might've been his hero instincts, sick of not barreling through annoying issues head on... or it might've been some remnant of the reckless kid he used to be... or even, maybe, he just wanted to see her looking happy, for once, in a way that didn't involve innocent people suffering. Whatever the reason, he didn't let her ignore him this time.

"You really need to stop drinking coffee before bed," he joked, loud enough for her to hear, soft enough that it wouldn't wake anyone up.

"So sorry for not sleeping through Kevin's freaking church bell snores," she shot back at matching volume.

"That's okay, I forgive you."

She glared, but the look dissolved into a smirk. "I'm sure I care."

"You wanna go for a walk?" He wasn't sure why he asked, except that it was the thing that had gotten them on chatty terms to start with, so a second one couldn't hurt. He didn't feel like sleeping anyway. He would've asked her to play a game with him if the sound wouldn't wake up the others. A part of him almost wished he could stay in the past forever, so he'd have an excuse to buy a headset for the game console. Amongst other reasons...

She stayed quiet for so long he started to wonder if he'd made her mad, but finally she just got up and padded outside in her bare feet. Naturally she was comfortably clothed otherwise, she _never_ took that flipping jacket off. He was starting to wonder if it was sewed to her skin. Scrambling quietly for clothes in the dark was fun, but he managed to get changed before she'd gone out of sight.

"You're so independent it's sickening," he said as he jogged to catch up with her.

"Is that what I am? I don't really think about it much," she replied without looking. As he got next to her, somehow he was struck by how _young_ she was. Maybe it was just the bare feet, or the expression on her face, but for once she actually felt a few years younger than him, like she presumably was.

"What do you think about, then?" he put out, purely to keep the conversation rolling.

"Killing and hurting people, mostly."

"Hah, come on, even you're not that bad!"

She kicked a stone and watched it roll. "I'm totally that bad. D'you know what I was thinking yesterday? I was thinking, 'I should probably get around to killing those Tennyson dorks. But I don't feel like it right now, I'll do it tomorrow.' That's what I was thinking the day before that, too. And the day before that."

"Well, you didn't because you're a good person, deep down. And I think you know that."

"I'm a bad person. That's who I am. Bad people exist to screw over losers like you. Losers _just_ like you, Ben. You're too nice to live, in any sane world. You tell me I'm not that bad deep down because you're not that bad deep down, and you can't believe anyone else is. But we _are_. And we're _happy_ with it. And we exist to freaking _eat_ people like you."

He shrugged. "So be happy, and eat me, then."

She turned to him and clacked her teeth, smirking. "Innuendo, Benny? For shame."

The sudden heat in his cheeks made an interesting contrast to the chill swirl of the night air. He wished he had Charmcaster's body-enveloping coat. A sudden crazy thought had him wishing he had her coat with her still _in_ it. Down, boy. You're a hero, not a horndog. That was Kevin's department. Right? Right. "The last time we had a late night walk," he went on, deliberately ignoring the flirting diversion, "you talked about how you weren't sure who you were anymore. And now you're talking about how you're a bad person, that's your identity, and that the world is based on a bad eat good relationship. Like predator and prey. So I think you know you're not that bad. You just can't face up to it, because then you'd have to rethink your whole place in the world, and how the world is s'posed to work."

"Whatever." She turned away from him again, walking faster. She really did look young. And vulnerable.

"Tell me that's not why you're having trouble sleeping every night," he said, matching her step for step. "Tell me that's not why you're so twitchy all the time, like even your reflection in a mirror is gonna pounce and get you."

"So what, are you spying on me now, you creep?" It was almost cheering to hear her upset, snapping. She knew he'd hit close to home and was just babbling whatever came to mind now to get back at him.

"No, but I am trying to look out for you, because I care," he said evenly.

She slide a step in front of him, pivoted neatly, and forced the both of them to a dead stop. "Stop." It was almost like a royal command or something, with the kind of authority she was putting into that one little word.

"No."

She seethed, and grated her teeth in ineffectual rage. "You're an idiot. I should've killed you by now. It messes everything up, hanging around losers like you..."

"So kill me."

"I will!"

"I'm waiting."

"Shut up."

"Still waiting."

Charmcaster slugged him in the face.

"Ow!" He staggered, one hand rubbing his jaw. It'd made him bite his lip, and the coppery taste of blood lingered in his mouth. She hit pretty hard, for someone who used brain over brawn. "Feel better?"

The girl's sigh was so heavy it was the next thing to visible in the air. Her head bowed, almost as if she were ashamed. "No. Hurting people doesn't make me feel good anymore like it used to. Like it's supposed to." A shudder worked its way down her spine and she leaned against a tree as if its low shadowy branches would be a safe refuge. "I don't know what to do anymore. I'm so tired."

"We can go back to sleep, if you want..."

"Not _that_ kind of tired, idiot." Her voice was strained, it almost sounded like she was going to cry, but Ben found that impossible to think about.

"Okay. So forget about all of it, then. Just... rest for a bit. And try to relax."

"Yeah, like I care what you think I should do." The strain was still there, though. She cared. Even if she couldn't admit it straight out. But hanging around Kevin had given him some practice in talking to people who couldn't admit stuff obvious enough for a blind person to see.

"I could hit you in the face too, if it'd help any," he offered flippantly.

She giggled. It was a hesitant, shaky giggle, the kind of giggle that didn't really want to make itself known but just forced its way out anyway. "Pass."

"Okay, just offering." As if magnetically drawn, one of his hands went to her hair, tracing fingertips down. It was one of her most obvious unique traits, and really hard not to pay attention to. Ridiculously, he just wanted to sink both hands in fully and pet her like a cat. An action which would _surely_ warrant mutilation and murder. Heck, he was surprised he was getting away with this much. She wasn't even mad, as far as he could tell, just looking at him weirdly. "So, um... what evil scheme are you gonna throw on me if you're not gonna kill me outright, huh, miss murderess?"

"Heh. What else _is_ left to do... if I'm not gonna kill you..." she said slowly, as if turning the thought over in her head to examine it from all angles.

Tilting her head very neatly, leaning upwards a bit, she kissed him, eyes open and staring into his. Then her body moved in to follow her mouth, meshing against him warmly, and that snapped him out of whatever trance the kiss had put him in. He stumbled back, cheeks burning, stammering and flustered.

"L-look, I'm sorry, but we're from different times, and I'm kind of sorta halfway partially dating this girl back in my own time..." he babbled, frantic, intensely aware of his own dorkiness, and hating every second of it. He was older. He should be in control of the situation. He _so_ wasn't in control of the situation!

To his relief, she wasn't hurt. But the way she rolled her eyes wasn't exactly comforting to his suddenly sensitive male ego. "So what, I'm not asking you to go steady with me or anything pathetic like that."

"But, I, uh..." He was drawing an absolute blank. What _was_ she asking of him, exactly?! He could barely see her eyes, through her hair and the dark. It made him uncomfortable, made him feel like she was some rapacious demonette out to ravish him... wait, that was bad? Of course it was, he had responsibilities and commitments! He was a hero! And, and stuff. Other important stuff, that he couldn't think of right now, with the warmth of her body and lips still burnt into his memory, but he was sure it'd come back any second now.

The female demon concept was only enhanced by her sudden aggressiveness, as she pushed him against the tree, nails digging through his thin shirt into his chest. "You told me to relax. Well, this is me relaxing." She raked her fingernails down and around to his hips. "You're a hero, right?" she murmured, lips so close to his, mockingly close, but not really touching. Her breath was warm. He could see her eyes again, but his brain was too frozen to appreciate the fact. "You're not going to hurt me... and I'm tired of looking for a better future that never comes." Her fingers slid back to the seat of his pants, and squeezed. "So fuck the future. Go back to it whenever you want, I don't care." She cared, her face told him. Her lips lied. "Just kiss me back, Ben. Forget about all that shit that doesn't matter. You told me to relax and enjoy the moment, but you have to do it too, or you're full of it."

"I... I, um... look, Charmcaster..." He had absolutely no idea what to say. To go from being meekly aware that a girl was good-looking, to being practically pounced upon by said girl and molested, was way more of a leap than he'd ever expected to experience save in his wildest fantasies. There was too much to think about, too many things in the way, too many complications. His younger self wouldn't have ever hesitated, but then, his younger self wouldn't have wanted to get kissed and groped in the first place! God forbid he ever had a normal life, love life or any other kind of life.

And just like that, she frosted over, fire to ice in an instant. "Fine."

Dang it.

He _knew_ that whenever a girl said _that_ word in _that_ kind of voice, it meant anything but FINE!

Somehow, seeing her walking off, more worldly yet still somehow easier to wound than him, young and tightly-wrapped in that coat she loved so much, twisted up his insides and did something to him, made something snap, that being kissed and felt up hadn't. He jogged after her.

"Charmcaster, wait, you can't just-"

"I can do whatever I want!"

He grabbed her by her oh-so-precious coat and _made_ her stop. The witch turned around and glared with such fury that he expected to get punched again.

"It's just... there's no _place_ for me here, Charmcaster," he said gently, almost pleadingly, trying to make her understand.

"Fuck you." Her voice was barely more than a whisper, shaking with enough semi-restrained emotion to power an entire soap opera cast. There were tears in her eyes, but they didn't fall. "There's no place for me anywhere."

They looked at each other for a moment, and then, somehow, Ben found himself kissing her and holding her tight.

After a while, she even allowed him to take off her coat.

--

They were happy. Willfully blind, probably, but happy. All of a sudden, Charmcaster seemed to open up and become a normal person, no worse than Kevin in most respects, and maybe even a little better in some ways. She told him, eventually, about how she expected the worst out of everyone else, and exactly all the horrible things she imagined could happen if she let her guard down. He pointed out how those horrible things consistently failed to happen day after day, and her resistance gradually dwindled. She didn't really trust Kevin, or either of the Gwens, or Grampa. But she grew to tolerate them with a kind of affectionate condescension. And Ben 10... _both_ of them... were given a subtle respect. Not that that gave them immunity to her mockery when she felt like mocking, or her insults when she felt like insulting, or any of the rest of it. At heart she was still cynical, sneaky, and venomous. But somehow, all that started to feel like a good thing instead of a bad thing.

The gang stopped being hesitant about doing research to help Charmcaster lift the curse. If she was acting, she had everyone fooled. Including herself. Not that what went on between her and Ben was public of course... they had some discretion! Ben, for his part, didn't want to face the lecture he know he'd get from _both_ Gwens, and Charmcaster just seemed to enjoy decieving people as a hobby. What the rest of 'em didn't know wouldn't hurt 'em. It was kind of exciting, too, to sneak kisses and other minor naughty things in the brief instants when no one was watching. A thrill, like heroing, but in a totally different kind of way. When Charmcaster grinned wickedly at him, now, he could grin back and share in the wickedness and know how good it felt. It was hard when she deliberately dropped double entendres in open conversation, though, and Ben had to practically choke himself to keep from laughing where the others would hear. Apparently, when you went to villain school, you took a course in torturing people who were trying to keep straight faces. Who knew.

It was just a fling. It was irresponsible. But they were both enjoying it, and Charmcaster seemed to be getting some real psychological benefits out of it. Sometimes she would pour her heart out to him in a way that made him wonder if she'd ever really had someone to talk honestly, in her whole life.

Ben started to wonder if he could maybe find an excuse to take her to the future with him. Or to look up her future self and hope the path of evil was not her ultimate destiny after all.

Then, one day, while he was getting up early to fix some pancakes (a preemptive assault intended to deprive Grampa of the chance to cook something revolting), when he was trying to find the spatula, he found a little audio recorder in the utensils drawer instead.

That was weird. Even as a ten year-old, Gwen was usually so neat about putting everything where it belonged. How had it gotten in there, anyway? He went to put it back in its little spot, and became even more confused when he saw an identical audio recorder already there.

Okaaaaaay. Magic double audio recorder. Spooky. Shrugging in his head, he hit the play button to listen to it while he mixed everything together for the pancakes.

"_Hi, Ben. This recorder will have made its way to you sooner or later. Hopefully sooner. Please don't listen to this where anyone else can hear, it's for you only._"

Ben blinked bemusedly, dumping Bisquick and water into a bowl and somehow managing to get half the Bisquick on his shirt in the process. Weirder and weirder. His cousin... _his_ cousin, not the younger Gwen... had recorded this? But why? And where'd she get the new recorder from? And why did she want him to listen to it alone? Oh well, everyone else was asleep anyway.

"_Everything I'm going to tell you from this point on will be difficult to believe. But you HAVE to, Ben. Everything depends on it. You can't trust the me you know, not completely, but you HAVE to trust me, the me you DON'T know._"

Oh yeah. That was totally self-explanatory. He repressed the urge to roll his eyes at an audio recorder, and sprinkled a little cinnamon in the mix for the heck of it. Except the top of the little bottle came off, and most of the cinnamon went in. He swore (mildly, by Charmcaster's or Kevin's standards) and dug most of it out and threw it away.

"_Charmcaster's been lying to you the whole time. Everything she says is a lie. Hex didn't put a curse on her, she cursed herself to have a good alibi to get close to you. She wants to kill you, Ben, and Grampa and me as well._"

"What... the... heck..." Ben murmured, breakfast forgotten. He set the bowl and spatula aside and stared at the audio recorder as it continued to play, as if to force answers from it with a look.

"_Any other duplicates dragged in through the temporal instabilities are also targets. None of the people close to you are safe from her. And you especially aren't safe. The Omnitrix makes you a high priority target. Doubtless by the time you get this she'll have done a lot of nice things for you, and helped you out, and said a lot of things that make you think she's really a good person, deep down inside. But she's not. She's an amoral sociopathic killer._"

He couldn't believe this. Was this some kind of joke? Gwendolyn didn't have a sense of humor this sick. Kevin, maybe Kevin had done it. Somehow bullied the younger Gwen into using some magic to temporarily age her voice and make a fake tape. That was it. That _had_ to be it. It was all Kevin's fault, somehow!

"_You're probably wondering right about now what right I have to say any of this. Charmcaster has a little audio cassette tape in her pouch that she uses as an escape route when things go bad, but just as it takes her out of one situation, it puts her into another one. These repeated escapes make a mess of the whole fabric of time and space, resulting in people being dragged into places and times where they're not supposed to be. That's how you got to where you are right now. If there's only two versions of you in your reality, you're lucky. It can get a lot worse._

_I'm not just guessing at her goals. I experienced the results of her work firsthand. I saw the corpses of my grandfather and Kevin. And you, as well, Ben. I saw you bloody and dead. I can't possibly tell you how much that hurt me. I'm only saying all this because you have to believe me, or else you'll have no hope. We all started out just like you. Ignorance is a shield, but not your shield. It's HER shield. Charmcaster is safe so long as her victims underestimate her. If you confront her directly she's powerless, but you have to believe that she needs to be confronted. Please, Ben. Save your family. Save Kevin. Save the fabric of the space and time._

_You're a hero, Ben, so I know you like to do things heroically, but it's too late to play things like a comic book story anymore. Things have gone too far. The stuff of timespace itself is tearing apart, and everything is going to hell. One by one, each reality is ruined by Charmcaster's petty murder schemes. You have to put a stop to it. You have to stop her, not just for yourself, but for everyone. I'm begging you, Ben, if you have any humanity in you, you have to do this for me._

_You have to kill Charmcaster, before she kills everyone else._"


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

It wasn't in Ben to sit on the sidelines usually. He was more of an instigator and a go-getter. But even ages after he'd listened to the mysterious tape, his brains were still scrambled. So, while chaos reigned, he just leaned against the rough-paint-spackled hotel room wall and listened.

"Come onnn, I need to wash my hair!" Kevin yelled through the bathroom door in a hilariously girly way. "You think this kind of bad boy mane maintains itself?! Well, it _doesn't_! It takes a lotta work to make it look like this!"

They'd gotten two rooms, but everyone was currently crowded into the girls' room. Charmcaster was luxuriating in a long hot bath, but the boys' bathroom plumbing was messed up, and the plumber the hotel had called wouldn't be in for at least an hour. She'd gotten in before either of the other girls, too, and was smug about it. People had been getting annoyed twenty minutes ago, and by now things were getting downright nasty.

"Screw you! I'm evil, deal with it!" Charmcaster yelled back.

"Every time she does something selfish, she just says she's evil and we should deal with it," little-Gwen snapped angrily. "Grampa, why're we putting up with this?! Make her act her age or something!"

But for all the anger wafting through the air, it wasn't that bad a situation. It was almost like a... family argument, really. Charmcaster was behaving like a brat, but not like a villain. And she was probably only doing it because everyone else was kicking up such a huge fuss, too. Just to get a rise out of 'em.

He'd been studying her a lot more carefully since he'd listened to the tape. And Gwen and Gwendolyn, too. Everyone seemed to act normal enough, and Charmcaster... she'd had plenty of chances to kill them but never acted on any of it! Sure, she talked about it, but that was just to maintain her rep. Because she was so uncomfortable accepting the concept of being a non-bad guy... well, girl. He couldn't believe she was playing them all for suckers. He just couldn't. The best thing to do, he'd decided, was to just ignore the tape as a random stupid prank or something. But even then he couldn't quite bring himself to destroy it.

"I think our little witch needs to be taught a lesson on how it feels to be manhandled with magic," Gwendolyn suggested with a devious look.

Her younger counterpart returned the look with interest. "Sounds fun..."

Grampa winced, anticipating the immeduate future. "Girls, don't do anything you might regret later..."

"Too late," younger-Ben murmured as the boys watched the Gwens magically smack open the door and charge in, all a-glowy.

There were shrieks, loud splashings, and several thumps and bangs before Charmcaster was unceremoniously catapulted out of the bathroom, wrapped roughly in a big poofy hotel towel, and soaked from head to toe. Ben bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from laughing, she looked so much like a pissed off wet cat it was hilarious. Back in the bathroom, Gwendolyn and Gwen started arguing over who got to use it next. Then his 'lower' brain caught up with his upper brain, realizing the other entertaining facets inherent to the current scenery besides pure humor, and his eyes glazed over.

"Well, we'll just get out of your way so you can dry off and change," Grampa said placatingly. They'd gone on a big clothes shopping trip before checking in at the hotel, and it was only by the grace of God that everyone had managed to talk Kevin out of getting a disturbingly gay-looking black mesh shirt.

Charmcaster mumbled something that was probably obscene, and shook her hair out like a dog shaking out its fur. She sprayed them all in the process, too, also like a dog would. The water drops spray attack knocked sense back into Ben just a second before it hit everyone else, and he had a split second to notice that younger-Ben and Kevin had _also_ had that glazed 'look, hawt nearly naked chick!' stare before the water snapped them out of it too. Which was all kinds of disturbing in so very many ways. As they trailed out, Kevin lingered to get a last look, and Ben 'accidentally' elbowed him in the head.

"Ow! Hey, man, watch it!"

"Sorry," Ben said innocently, doing his best angelic expression. "You're sick, I can't believe you'd ogle her like that," he added firmly once they were outside and the door was shut. "But what I _really_ can't believe is that you'd ogle her instead of _Gwendolyn_. I mean, she's been in a two-piece around you and you were acting like a total gentleman, what's up with that?"

"Oh, I got a good look or three. I just did it when you weren't payin' attention," he came back, leering. "OW! STOP DOING THAT!"

"Naw, I'd rather keep on smackin' you around. In fact, I may ask my brilliant and handsome younger self to help me out. Ben, would you mind helping me kick Kevin's butt for being a great big perv?"

That huge boyish grin was almost as fun to watch as it was to have. Ben wondered the last time when _he'd_ grinned that big. Years ago, probably. "It'd be my pleasure, Ben!"

Kevin was starting to look a little panicked when Grampa spoiled all their fun. "Okay, kids, don't make me call a time out on you guys," he warned with a twinkle in his eye.

The three of them all looked at each other. "The scary thing is, I think he could actually do it," Ben finally said, surrendering to grandparental authority.

"Man, super powers ain't worth crap for respect," Kevin complained. They all drifted off to separate activities, resigned in their horrible temporarily bathroomless fate. Ben followed behind Kevin mostly out of the semi-comfortable familiarity of his presence, unburdened by any of the wistful, bittersweet memories connected to this time's Tennysons. They ended up leaning up against the second-story railing overlooking the parking lot and arguing over the virtues of the different kinds of cars. After a few minutes of that, Kevin looked around furtively and dug a package of cigarettes out of a pocket.

"They're gonna catch you doing that one of these days," Ben commented as he watched his sort-of-friend light up. "Even if they don't see it, the smell's gonna tip 'em off sooner or later." He smirked. "And I'm sure Gwendolyn will be soooo disappointed in you."

Kevin cackled. "Yeah, you think I'm sneakin' around with this 'cause I care what she thinks about me? Please! I just don't wanna have to listen to the one hour health lecture she'd give me."

"Suuuure."

Kevin smacked him, but Ben figured it was fair since Kevin had gotten two smacks already today.

"I hope 'Caster's not gonna be a bitch all day 'cause she got thrown out of her bath," Kevin grumbled. "You know how she loves to take every little excuse to screw with us."

"She doesn't mean anything. All part of the I'm An Evil Poser game. You know the rules to that one pretty well, dontcha?"

"Pff, better than that wannabe."

"So you're _more_ of a poser?"

"Shut up, that's not how I meant it!" He flicked the cigarette down on the concrete irritably and stomped it. "She's just a one shot, two bit schemer. I bet _she's_ never teamed up with Vilgax, or had all the excitin' kinds of do or die fights we've had."

"Aww, Kevy, you almost sound nostalgic for the days when I was beating the tar out of you." Ben ducked another attempted smack, grinning. "Big fights just aren't her style. If you used to be my opposite number, we could call her Gwen's opposite number... she's more into using her head than her fists."

"So like I said, she's a two bit schemer."

Ben felt oddly defensive of her. Probably because it was Kevin being condescending. If anyone else had said it, or if it'd been put in a more respectful way, that'd be one thing. But it was coming down to a 'my villainy is better than your villainy' ego contest and Ben considered it his personal mission in life to deflate Kevin whenever possible. Besides, he didn't need to deal with Kevin's flimsy excuses for disliking Charmcaster while still trying to forget about that stupid tape.

"Just shut up, man. It's not like you've gotten to know her anyway."

"Hey, we've talked. A little. Her favorite color's white, mine's black. She likes steak, I like corndogs. She thinks I'm an idiot, I think she's a wuss. What else is there t'know?"

Ben went cold inside, staring blindly at the remains of the crushed cigarette, dying smoke wafting up from it in a tiny trail. "Um... okay then," he murmured.

Just two days ago, Charmcaster had told him her favorite color was _purple_. Why would she answer differently to different people?

Maybe she didn't have a favorite color, and just said whatever came to mind.

Or maybe she'd lied so many times, she couldn't keep all her lines consistent.

It was just a stupid, trivial, meaningless thing... except that there was _no reason_ for her to tell Kevin one thing about _him_ another! If she didn't have a favorite color, she would've just said that, right?!

A finger poked him in the shoulder uncomfortably. "You okay man? You look out of it."

"M'fine," Ben answered absently, mind racing. Why would she _lie_ about it?! If she'd lie about something like _that_, something so pointless and minor, what _else_ would she lie about, just for the sake of lying? All those long heartfelt talks they'd had, how much of all that was really real?

Was she just playing him for a sucker, like Kevin would have thought, like... let's face it, everyone other than Grampa would have thought, if they knew about the tape? He wanted so bad to be like Grampa, to be just that good and to bring out the good in other people, but what if he was letting his longing for that get in the way of practical, obvious stuff even his younger, brasher self wouldn't have missed? Had he allowed himself to forget that being a hero was about protecting the _innocent_ people first, above all else?

The unpleasant possibilities boiled furiously in his mind, but he felt cold all over, and shivered.

Kevin was saying something, but Ben didn't listen. He just walked off in a daze, the smells of gasoline and smoke lingering in his nostrils.

A few minutes of walking and worrying, and he had it all figured out. He was just overreacting, that was obvious. So what if he couldn't think of a good reason why she would lie about her favorite color... it was just her favorite color! He'd just set his mind at ease by making sure she wasn't some sort of chronic liar addicted to manipulating people, make up some little test or other to prove her non-evilness, and relax secure in the knowledge of her sincerity after she passed.

He scampered back to the girls' room to find her brushing out her still damp hair, and realized he'd made the classic mistake every guy seemed to make in these kinds of situations: he hadn't thought of anything specific to say on the way there!

"Uh, hi," he managed, and that was about all his poor panicky brain could do for him.

"Hey. If you're here for the bathroom, be ready to wait a little longer." She glared at the closed door with a disgusted expression. "They couldn't figure out who should get the next bath so they're taking it together. Your grandpa really shouldn't've sprung for the luxury room, it's wasted on these losers." There was a loud splash and a thud from behind the door, and Charmcaster smirked at Ben's wide-eyed, unnerved expression. "Maybe they'll kill each other!" She sounded hopeful. But she was just kidding, after all! ...Right?

He sat down on the bed next to her and more or less deflated against the wall with a sigh. "You don't go into hero stuff without expecting life to be weird, but this is just... weirder than weird. They'd need to come up with a new word for it."

"Schmeird?" Charmcaster suggested randomly, tossing the brush away and propping her head on his shoulder. Her hair hung down over him, half-dried. It was really hard to repress the urge to run his fingers over it.

"Okay, schmeird sounds weirder than weird," he agreed, trying to get his brain off yet _another_ distracting image for the day and onto the business at hand.

She grabbed the remote and turned the tv on, flicking around at random, the way people did when they didn't know what numbers corresponded with what channels anyway.

"_Go go Power Rangeerrrsss..._"

"You gotta admit, it does have kind of a catchy theme tune," Ben commented as she grimaced and changed channels almost instantly.

"_Senator McCain: patriotic American, or MOST PATRIOTIC American?_"

"Why talk about politics when you can just assassinate whoever's in office if he sucks?" Charmcaster complained.

It was just a joke. JUST A JOKE. Ben bit the inside of his cheek and kept his face still and impassive. Feeling the warmth of her body leaning against him felt like being corrupted by the enemy.

"_...yet another dangerous act of vandalism by the quintuplet gang calling themselves World's End. No casualties have been reported so far, but-_"

Ben's hero instincts perked up. "Hey, turn that back. Sounds like something a Ben 10 would be interested in..."

She snorted disdainfully. "A street gang with five people in it? You want to fight _that_ after tangling with the likes of me and my uncle? That's insulting! Sit back and relax a little, McFly."

He leaned away from her. "Why would you want me to not stop a crime? Unless you've got something at stake..."

"Jesus, paranoid much? Do you pull out your spandex and flex your pecs every time you see a crime reported on the news?"

"Well, no-"

"Then let it go. I'm sure the cops can handle it."

Dammit. She actually had a point. "My cousin finally grows out of making me feel wrong for every little thing I do, and you take her place," he grumbled, stretching out and eyeballing the Spongebobed tv warily. "Is it my destiny to lose every argument in my life that doesn't involve Kevin?"

"Only if you're arguing with a girl. Hey, I don't make the rules," she added smirkingly at his dirty look. "I just break 'em." She slithered down to get next to him again, planting a quick kiss on his neck, and another on the corner of his mouth.

He was anything but comfortable with all the affection right now, but he couldn't bring himself to tell her to stop, either. She could be so skittish sometimes, he didn't want to piss her off just when he most needed to get to know her better.

"Why do you always keep your eyes open when you kiss me?" he asked at random, softly. It was something he'd been wondering about for a while now anyway. It just seemed a little weird.

"So I have a good memory of looking at you just in case I decide to kill you after," she shot back with unhesitating snarkiness.

Normally, her devilish half-smile would have made him laugh, but instead it just made him cold again. He pretended everything was fine and stared up at the ceiling. He had to focus. He'd come in here for a reason, and it wasn't just to enjoy her company. There had to be something he could ask Charmcaster to get her to prove her innocence. As soon as he could get his mind off how warm she was, and how cute she looked when she was being mischevious, and the way she stole kisses like they'd burn if she let them linger for more than a second. That dumb paranoia-seeding tape was feeling like the enemy now. Heck, it probably _was_ a villain, or at least the tool of a bad guy, trying to get him to distrust someone perfectly... well, not _good_, but at least not that evil right now!

"Is Hex really your uncle?" he blurted. It was just another little thing he already knew, or thought he knew, from a secondhand... hadn't Gwen mentioned a while back that Hex and Charmcaster were blood relatives? It explained the magic anyway. All that stuff was hereditary, mostly. It was a simple test. Anyone could pass it. All she had to do was say the same thing she said to Gwen. And that _was_ what she'd say, and then everything would be okay again...

"Hnn? No, he kidnapped me when I was little. So he could have an apprentice to massage his overinflated ego." She rolled her eyes. "I got the better end of the deal, though. He got a suckup for a few years, but I got the spells. Good trade."

No, no no no no NO! God, no! This was not how it was supposed to go! There had to be some explanation... had he misremembered what Gwen had told him? He wished he had, but no, the exact words she'd said to him were clearer than ever in his head. Charmcaster had definitely told Gwen one thing, and told him something else just now. Why?! Was she really playing him for a sucker?!

He had to confront her. It was the only thing left to do. The only way... she'd have some kind of rationale, some totally reasonable explanation he'd overlooked, he was sure.

"That's funny," he said carefully, forcing himself to look at her even though he didn't want to, even though he wanted nothing more than to turn his eyes away and forget what she'd said. "Because Gwen told me you and Hex were blood relatives."

And his worst fears seemed justified in that one terrible moment, where she froze, mouth a little round 'o' of surprise, her brain apparently gone blank as his had been earlier. She recovered quickly, but he noticed the lapse in poise. He noticed it, and filed it away in his head, with a sick feeling in his throat and stomach.

"Well, she, ah, misheard what I was saying probably." Charmcaster was using such a cloyingly nice, innocent tone that he didn't believe her for one second.

"And Kevin misheard you too?"

She sat up, blinking. "What?"

He sat up too, voice growing louder and angrier without his volition. "Your favorite color. You told him white. You told _me_ purple. Did Kevin not hear you right too, or is it really that you're just making up whatever bullshit you feel like feeding us whenever we talk to you?!" Some tiny, coldly rational part of him analyzed her reaction: panic, and hurt, both kept leashed, then swallowed up by angry resentment that was at least half faked to cover the first two parts. He would have felt sorry for her, had the situation been less serious, and had he not been thinking about how easy it would be for Charmcaster to kill them all in their sleep if she felt like it. He'd lost Grampa. He didn't need to lose anyone else. It was his responsibility as a hero to keep things like that from happening, no matter what!

"Yeah... well..." she stammered. "Excuse me for not telling you vigilante cop wannabes everything personal about me and my life!" she burst out finally. "I mean, we could go back to fighting any time if you thought I wasn't 'really' all that nice, and we'll probably be fighting anyway once the curse is lifted, so why should I tell you guys anything about me?! You'd just use it as a psychological weapon later on to try to get me to convert or something stupid like that! I told you I'm all about enjoying the present, so if I make up some stuff when anyone asks about my past, what's it matter?!"

It was almost... convincing. Was that really all it was? Was she just so uncomfortable with getting close to them because she was more practical than them, more aware that their truce was temporary and it would be dumb to get cozy with it? And lying about every little thing... okay, it was kind of neurotic, but heck, she was a magic-slinging witch criminal with a megalomaniac uncle, it was practically expected for her to be a little messed up in the head! As far as bad habits went, she could have far worse. Had he totally misjudged her?

Or was that just what he _wanted_ to think?

"I... look, I want to believe you-" he started to say.

"Then _do_," she interrupted, with a tone that was heartachingly close to pleading. "And if you don't like my answers when you ask me stuff, then maybe you can just stop asking. It's better that way."

This timeline's Grampa, and Ben, and Gwen, and his own Gwendolyn, and Kevin... they were all depending on him. He had to be a hero. He had to keep them safe.

But he didn't want to hurt Charmcaster, either.

He didn't know what to say or do.

A crazy part of him wanted to just tell her everything, everything the tape had said, but that way was a no go, a total self-destruct. If it was all false, just a ruse planted by some other enemy, then Charmcaster would be incredibly pissed at him for falling for it, and things between them would never be the same. She seemed like the kind of person who knew how to hold a grudge when things got this personal. And if was all true, then he'd just be tipping her off that a Gwendolyn from another timeline, or universe, or _something_, was sending him messages to try to help him out. There was no way telling Charmcaster about it would be anything but a mistake, but it hated keeping the secret. He wasn't a very closed off guy by nature. In fact, most of the time he just said whatever came to mind, and it was hard to fight against the habit now.

She'd given him no reason to be less suspicious, but confronting her had somehow taken all the fire out of him. Looking at her sitting there, as vulnerable and upset as any other person in an argument with someone they'd grown semi-close to, he just couldn't fall for her being as cold-blooded a murderer as the tape would have him believe. Charmcaster'd done a ton of bad things, a ton of illegal things... maybe a few maniacal things, even, in a cartoony sort of way... but she'd never actually stooped down to pragmatic, ruthless serial killing. He _couldn't_ believe it, no matter _what_ the stupid tape said, even if she _did_ have a seriously unhealthy addiction to lying. That decided firmly, if mutely, inside, something in him snapped and he relaxed, breath coming out of his lips in a half-whistle.

"Okay. I'm sorry," he told her, sincerely, as if he'd done some typical stupid guy thing and deserved a scolding for it.

And then, to his unsurprise, Charmcaster did whatever she did since that first kiss, when things got too uncomfortably emotional. She backpedalled and blew it all off with a desperate casualness. God forbid she ever just accept an apology like a normal person. "Yeah, well, you _should_ be. I'll forgive you if you get me breakfast in bed tomorrow though. I like my toast with grape jelly. _Grape_, not strawberry or raspberry or any of that other crap."

"Breakfast in bed?" he replied wonderingly, half at the sheer audacity of the request, and half at the sudden sinking realization that he was actually going to _do_ it. "We've only been like... _this_... for less than a month, and... good God, how whipped am I?"

"Pretty whipped," she said cheerfully. "Serves you right for being the good guy, too."

Ben wondered if she really liked grape jelly, or if she just said she did to mess with him later on when she changed her mind. He wondered if she would really deliberately lie about something as petty as a flavor of jelly, just to screw with him. And he decided that yes, yes she would. Even Kevin had said it, the girl was a schemer, that was all there was to it. He could either shrug and roll with it, or get pissy and drive her further off.

The choice was obvious.

They didn't exactly have a makeup makeout, because Charmcaster didn't exactly make out like normal couples did. Or at least, how he assumed they did based on movies and things. She would kiss, but only a little. Cuddle, but only a little. She'd do a lot of things, really, to the point where Ben had started thinking about boundary issues, except that it never got to that point because she never did any one thing for any lengthy period of time. As if he were a trap that would snap around her if she actually allowed herself the luxury of a deep kiss or a caress that didn't vanish almost as soon as it was noticed. Maybe it was just her weird villain psychology. Or maybe she was just nervous, too, and didn't want to admit it. For all he knew she'd never been with anyone before, and he'd at least been out on a semi-casual date with Julie. Even if it _had_ been interrupted by alien mishaps.

So, it never really got intense, but it was still kind of satisfying in its own way. And it allowed Ben to keep an eye on the closed bathroom door. His latest paranoia was a furtive terror of either of the Gwens catching him and Charmcaster. In the girls' room, on the bed... yeah, that would _not_ look good. He was ready to dive a minimum of three feet away from Charmcaster at any given moment. She seemed to guess why he was so twitchy, and wasn't offended... but even worse, she used it as an excuse to play up the 'naughtiness' of it! The usual condescending smirk was turned up a notch into a positively sadistic grin as she threw out innuendo after innuendo after half-attempted grope. She just did it to embarrass him, he was sure. That, and he thought maybe she kind of wanted to get caught, so she could have a nice big catfight with the Gwens. And that was _not_ on Ben's to do list... _ever_. Some fights were too scary for even a superhero to face.

Then, just when he was ready to find an excuse to flee, or at least get her to move to less immediately risky surroundings, Charmcaster pulled something out of her bag of tricks that left him more terrified than anything else she'd ever done or said. And that _included_ everything involving the tape.

"Hey, wannabe superhero... tell me you love me," she suggested while sprawled out, one hand propping her head up, eyes lazily half-lidded.

Okay.

He could safely say that he had never, _ever_ thought she would say that.

She was just messing with him, right? This was just another headgame, right?!

_RIGHT?!_

She laughed at his probably-hilarious expression, and grinned her best wicked witch grin. "Relaaax, Benny. I'm not saying I _want_ you to _love_ me. I'm just saying I wanna hear the _words_. You've got such a big hangup about lying, it'll be good practice for you."

His heart slowed down from a terrified pounding to something like normal again, and he almost collapsed in sheer relief. She was just messing with him. But still... something about her face, when she'd said that middle part... 'I'm just saying I wanna hear the _words_.' He peered at her closely.

"People've said they've loved you before, right, Charmcaster?" he asked.

Her face went blanker than a piece of paper with nothing written on it. "I kind of told myself once. I don't think that really counts. So, d'you like that answer or should I make up another one for a better story?"

"I'd be happy with the truth, whatever it is," he said, voice gentle.

The corners of her mouth quirked upwards faintly. "Yeah. That's your first lie today," she replied. She tried for an inscrutable tone to match her expression, but he heard the bittersweet ache in the words. "As far as I know, anyway."

The urge to sigh was strong, but he didn't do it. He was sighing too much lately. "I love you," he told her, and kissed her three times after saying it. Once on the left side of the mouth, once on the right, and then once straight in the middle. He didn't mean it, he thought, but that was okay, because she _knew_ he didn't mean it, and she didn't _want_ him to mean it. She'd _said_ so. Unless that, too, was yet another lie.

"Liar," she murmured, tracing a finger down his jaw, and that single word had more open affection in it than anything that he'd ever heard come out of her mouth before.

"Maybe I am, sometimes. But _everything_ you say is a lie," he shot back playfully, "so I've still got the moral high ground."

It was as though he'd flipped a switch.

Or punched a button... definitely a red one.

Just like that, with those words, everything that was between them melted away instantly. She was stiff and cold and there wasn't a drop of playfulness or sentiment in her anger this time. Charmcaster was pure ice.

"Who told you that?"

Her voice was so tightly controlled, so absolute, it almost didn't even sound like her. At least, not the her that Ben had grown to know or at least feel like he knew. It did bring back memories, though. Very old ones, ones he'd almost forgotten, of fighting her, of her doing her best to kill him and Gwen and anyone else who got in her way. They were back to being enemies again, just like that. It sent a chill through his spine.

"I _said_, who told you that?!" Her voice was shaking, caught between ice and fire, but her face and body were still, statuesque, like some harbinger of doom.

"N-no one..." he said slowly, mystified at why she was suddenly so upset. What had he said?! She leaned closer, still with that super-creepy stony expression, and he swallowed.

"Liar," she spat, and the word had as much hate in it now as it had had love just moments ago. "_Who?!_"

"L-look, Charmcaster, relax, I-" he stammered, still not sure what he'd said or why she was acting like this, but wanting to fix it. Too bad she was so freaking _scary_ right now his brain wasn't working well enough for him to think of a way to fix things! She was _younger_ than him, and a _girl_, and she had _no powers_, so how the heck was she making him so scared of her?!

"Was it Gwendolyn?!"

Ben's eyes widened.

She saw, and something in that mask of hers broke, her face twisting vaguely.

As they looked at each other silently, somehow Ben knew that things were, as of this moment, well and truly fucked up. He wanted to say he was sorry, but that was ridiculous, he didn't have anything to apologize for! And if she was suspecting Gwendolyn for some reason... the tape had had Gwendolyn's voice.

Everything was fucked up now.

He didn't know what it all meant, but he knew that much.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he tried to soothe her, voice barely over a whisper.

Charmcaster started laughing.

Not just regular laughing, or even regular hysterical laughing with crying mixed in. It was a completely deranged, senselessly maniacal, and incredibly unhappy laughter. It was laughter without a drop of actual joy or humor in it. It was laughter that was being laughed only because the only things to do were laugh or cry, and Charmcaster had chosen the former as marginally less awful. It was the laughter of a damned soul. She was mumbling half-coherent words in between the laughs, but he couldn't bring himself to listen closely enough to understand, his entire world was temporarily taken up by what was essentially an assault in audible format.

It would have been incredibly funny if he wasn't scared shitless.

The tape had had Gwendolyn's voice on it.

'_Was it Gwendolyn?!_'

Oh, God... was it all true?

He never would have thought the Charmcaster he knew to stoop so low, but the Charmcaster in front of him right now was a different person. A stranger he'd never laid eyes on before, who might do anything, any-freaking-thing, at any freaking moment.

He was such a fool.

The bathroom door creaked open, and two wet redheads peered into the room.

"What's so funny?" Gwendolyn asked, understandably confused.

As quickly as she'd gone nuts, Charmcaster snapped back to normal. Ben saw almost a dark cloud of hate and... was that fear... no, couldn't be... pass over her face as soon as she heard Gwendolyn's voice, but it instantly melted away into Charmcaster's normal condescending smirk.

"Nothing," she said casually, standing up and stretching. "I'm going out."

She walked over to the outer door and slipped outside smoothly, not even giving Ben a parting glance. When the door shut with a click, Ben had a horrible feeling that the door had been closed in more ways than one.

He knew, now, that she was the enemy.

And he was afraid, for a great many different reasons.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

She wouldn't stop kissing him, and that was somehow the worst part. The exact opposite of what he'd expected to happen had happened... instead of turning off from him cold turkey she stepped _up_ the physical affection. But it wasn't in a way that anyone, no matter how horny, would've appreciated. The kisses and gropes and all the rest of it became weapons to make him uncomfortable, her smiles were replaced with cold smirks, and the little snuggles, caresses, and heartfelt talks disappeared entirely. It would've been a welcome relief if Charmcaster just came out and decked him, or something. But no, she didn't do that, because she knew he was prepared for it. She hurt him in the lowest and most underhanded way possible, by abusing their position of pseudo-intimacy with each other, especially whenever someone might catch them.

They never talked about what had happened that day in the hotel room, but from then on, it was basically war. Psychological rather than physical, but very definitely war. Only Ben hadn't a freaking clue how to fight back, what his weapons were, what his strategy should be. It was her 'home turf,' so to speak... Charmcaster knew how to make him feel bad even when he was pretty sure he hadn't done anything wrong, and he didn't know what to do against that. He spent countless dead silent moments between them practically burning with the repressed desire to apologize... to APOLOGIZE! To a crazy passive-aggressive witch who was probably trying to kill them all! That was just how good she was.

They never just talked anymore, not like they used to.

Ben wondered how pathetic he was to actually miss that.

But his regrets were kept entirely in check by an icy terror of losing what family he had left. Having seen one grandfather die, he had no desire to see an alternate reality one kick the bucket too. The younger him and Gwen were starting to feel like little siblings, almost. Kevin, for all his faults, was part of the team and trusted Ben to keep everyone semi-safe. And his cousin... the _real_ one, not the kiddy one... was not something he was going to risk. Not for Charmcaster. Not for anyone. They'd been through too much crap together for him to fail her now; she'd believed in him and called him a hero and he had to play the part.

He _had_ to be the hero, because without it he wasn't really anything special anyway.

The tape had warned him strongly against trusting anyone, even his own family, but he could only take so much chick psychological warfare tactics before getting desperate. He didn't want to worry Gwendolyn, but he did need her advice, her opinion. She'd always given it to him before whether he wanted it or not, and in lacking it now he realized how much he needed it, depended on it. He needed her to tell him what to do. He didn't have to go into the full extent of the tape's ramblings... or even talk about the tape itself. Just mumble a few vague suspicions in her ear and see what she thought about it all. Then he could get some advice, and Gwendolyn wouldn't have to worry much more than usual, and Charmcaster would hopefully not know any better.

To his admittedly straightforward guy-mind, it seemed workable.

One snag he didn't foresee was Charmcaster running into Gwendolyn just a moment earlier than him, and making an unprecedented request for 'girl talk.' He was pretty sure that was Charmcaster code for something or other, because he couldn't imagine her engaging in girl talk the way he thought it was supposed to go.

Eavesdropping from around the corner, his fears on that count were realized immediately.

"Things don't have to turn out like they did the other times just because you remembered them that way, y'know," Charmcaster said with poisonous artificial sweetness. He didn't look, but it was easy to imagine her slitted cold-eyed gaze and threatening stance. "If you'd just kept your big mouth shut and let me have my little vacation, we could've worked out something. But no, you just had to meddle. Just like you've always meddled, since you were ten goddamn years old, you self-righteous brat." The sweet slowly boiled out of the words until there was nothing left but plain honest hate and rage. It was terrifying to hear, to listen to Charmcaster devolve into her old villainous self. The mask was dropping off.

"What bug jumped up your coat? I haven't said anything about you!"

"Oh, drop the bullshit, how stupid do you think I am?! _Someone_ told him, he didn't just remember any of it himself, or I'd be back in jail or something by now. He's jumpy but not _that_ jumpy. Or wasn't, anyway. And it couldn't have been Kevin, because he can't act his way out of a paper bag. And it wasn't either of the brats for the same reason. And it wasn't the old geezer, he's not acting more protective or worried or anything. You're the only that makes any sense to suspect, and you're the one Ben reacted to when I brought you up. I know it was you, so stop messing with me and let's just fight or whatever and get this crap _done_ with!"

"Jeez, have you hit your head or something? I don't know what you're talking about!"

Charmcaster's responding laugh was just about the most bitter, unhappy laugh Ben had ever heard. "That's just what _he_ said, but he knew. He knew. He parroted you first and now you're parroting him, you two twits think that much alike, isn't that adorable. Everything I say is a lie, right? Don't think I don't know you're the only one who could've passed _that_ little tidbit along. You self-righteous bitch, I wasn't even _doing_ anything this time, but you just couldn't let me have a good time for a change, could you? Had to make sure the villain got her comeuppance because that's what people like you do. The only thing I don't get is why you haven't tried to bump me off, yet. It's not like I care anymore, I mean, apparently even that won't let me escape these goddamn loops, so it's not like it's murder! So what're you waiting for?! I won't even fight you. Go ahead and kill me. Go ahead. I don't care anymore."

"I... I think you need to go lie down for a bit, you seem delirious. And maybe a little hysterical. Come on, I'll order some Chinese and you can have a nap and some eggrolls and you'll feel a lot better afterwards..."

"You and your eggrolls can go to hell, you freak!"

It was Ben's 'good luck' that Charmcaster managed to take a route that had her bump blindly into him in her emotion-induced blindness while she rushed away from a confused and concerned Gwendolyn. Charmcaster stared up at him as if not recognizing him at all for a second, then her face hardened and she sidestepped, hurrying on. At this point she must've figured it didn't matter if he'd heard or not. Things were heading towards critical mass.

Part of him wanted to hurry after her, to grab her and make her tell her side of the story, in hopes of there being some crazy explanation that would make everything okay. The part of him that didn't want to give up the affections of a cute girl, probably. He was disgusted at himself for it and listened to the _rest_ of him, the other parts that were mature and adult and rational, and knew that he had to talk to Gwendolyn about this. The tape had said not to trust _anybody_, but now that Charmcaster was blabbing all over the place things no one could understand without the right context, it wasn't like talking it over with his cousin could be a bad thing. He believed the tape, crazy time travel story and alternate realities and murder mysteries and all, but he took its advice with a grain of salt.

After all, he wasn't gonna _kill_ Charmcaster, either. Not unless he had to, because she was about to blow someone's brains out or something. There _had_ to be a better way out of this than just coldblooded killing. There'd always been a better way before, why would life deal him a bum hand of cards now? Heroes didn't just go around killing all the bad guys. It was bad form!

"Gwen?" His cousin looked upset and bewildered, pretty understandable given how Charmcaster'd behaved.

"Uh, hey. Do you know what any of that was all about? Because I haven't got a clue."

"Kind of. I've got something you need to listen to."

--

Supper that night was less than pleasant. Gwendolyn had agreed with him that it was best to just keep playing along and acting normal for now, since they didn't want to set Charmcaster off. At least, not before they disarmed her of her magic time travel tape. With that safety escape out of the plan, it seemed pretty likely that Charmcaster wouldn't try anything rash anymore. Once that was accomplished, Charmcaster would be in a position of weakness, and they could bargain with her from the high ground. So, they pretended everything was normal.

But everything wasn't normal.

Every single word out of Ben's mouth felt clumsy and forced, faker than a shiny plastic Halloween mask. Charmcaster barely talked at all. Mostly, she just smirked and rolled her eyes and gave him and Gwendolyn meaningful looks. When she wasn't engaged in being superior or condescending, she seemed almost depressed. He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her and yell '_What're you acting unhappy about, things are only the way they are because you CHOSE for them to be this way! I didn't ask you to go around killing alternate dimension Tennysons, did I?!_'

She had no right to act like this wasn't her fault.

She had no right.

Ben almost hated her for it. Almost, but whenever he got sunk too deep in his own brooding he just took a look at Gwendolyn, calm and level-headed, faking sociability and general at-ease-ness far better than him or Charmcaster, and he felt better. She was handling it okay, he owed it to her to keep his cool. He wasn't a little kid anymore, after all. After a while Charmcaster seemed to notice the source of his confidence, and maybe he was imagining it, but it seemed like she started giving Gwendolyn cold glances while cutting up her food very deliberately. As if imagining she was running that knife through something other than a hamburger steak.

There was a portable radio that'd been turned down to a tiny buzz, but somehow Gwendolyn managed to instantly notice when the next song was from one of her favorite bands.

"Oh, Cardigans," his cousin chirped perkily, seemingly forgetting all about the Charmcaster situation for that brief moment. Well, who could blame her. With Grampa here, it was so easy to just pretend everything was fine. Or would be, if Charmcaster would stop _looking_ at him like that!

"Turn it uuuppp," the younger Gwen demanded.

He was happy to oblige. Maybe the music would keep his mind off of things he couldn't solve at the dinner table. At this point, any distraction was a good distraction.

_This is a start that I know I'll believe in, so I'm leaving everything behind_

Though he'd wanted it as a distraction, he couldn't help but keep half an eye on Charmcaster, and notice that her expression went sour, half a peppered french fry drooping down in her frowning mouth. She finishing eating it with a single sharp bite, like a shark gulping a fish, but the taste didn't seem to improve her mood.

_Keeping the parts that I know I'll be needing, and I breed to be a better kind_

_And I'm leaving everyone behind_

"I hate that song. Could you please turn that shit off?" she demanded as the voiceless guitar prologue started playing in full force, sounding tired and rubbing at her forehead as if it hurt. Ben blinked in surprise. It was the first time as far as he knew that she'd dropped her persona to swear in front of Grampa or the kids. On the other hand, she'd actually said _please_. Apparently sincerely. For the first time in... well, ever.

"Now, now, let's keep it clean at the table," Grampa chided her mildly. "Tell you what, you can pick the station once this song's done, how's that sound?"

_This is the age when past should be gone, but it's just stronger than the aims I have_

"It _sounds_ like _shit_," she snarled with particular emphasis placed on the last word, eyes wide and glaring.

"What are you, on your monthly visit from 'aunt flow?' Kevin shot out snidely, rolling his eyes. "Listening through a crap song's pretty low rent for room and board. Try overdosin' on chill pills for a change."

Ben almost physically cringed in anticipation of the ugliness that would result from Charmcaster and Kevin clashing at the table. They'd end up killing each other. Or someone else, maybe, in Charmcaster's case...

_Turning the pages I used to hang on to, I was young and I have changed my mind_

With a wordless sound of disgust, teeth practically bared, Charmcaster reached over the table towards the radio... which in a split second was suddenly being held protectively by the younger Gwen, who stuck out her tongue tauntingly. Ben wished he could tell her that that was a bad idea... Charmcaster _wasn't_ like a cousin. If there was rivalry, it was of a different and much deadlier sort.

"Why don't ya just enjoy it while it lasts, 'Caster?" Gwen called out sing-songishly, face filled with impish enjoyment. "I bet they won't let you listen to music while you're eating back in prison. We're not making you dress in orange, either, you're SO lucky. It clashes with your hair like you wouldn't believe."

_And I'm leaving everything behind_

He held his breath without meaning to, every single part of him including his lungs seemingly stilled in that moment of dread. Gwen didn't _mean_ anything by it, he knew. Ten year-old Gwen was just being... ten year-old Gwen. This kind of stuff was actually a kind of display of affection for her. And maybe if Charmcaster had been in a mood to think clearly and rationally, she would have known that too. But right now Charmcaster was pissed off, for some reason over the stupid song, and she probably wasn't going to let Gwen treat her like a cousin.

_New beginning again, a bit closer_

_New beginning again, a little bit closer_

_New beginning again, a bit closer to the-_

That last powerful chorus seemed to jumpstart something in Charmcaster, and she lunged across the table, knocking over two glasses that soaked half the table with warm tea and icy fizzing soda. Before the last word of the line got sung, Charmcaster snatched up the radio and violently ripped the volume control knob off while turning it down to mute, and then finished off by throwing the poor inoffensive piece of plastic on the ground like it was something loathsome. She stood there and glared at everyone, the entire table briefly speechless at the random inappropriateness. Something in her eyes shimmered. Tears, or rage? For all Ben knew, it was both.

"You're mocking me," she said lowly, looking from one face to the next. "Are you _all_ that good at acting? Fuck, of _course_ you are, _anyone_ can be good if they've looped enough to get used to it. You're MOCKING me!" For some reason, Gwendolyn was smiling faintly, and Charmcaster latched in on that as if drawn magnetically. "Is this your idea of a fair punishment? Are you gonna fuck me over one loop for every loop I've messed with you, is that it? Maybe kill me and resurrect me just to kill me a few more dozen times, so we'll be totally even-steven?" Gwendolyn's smile fell away at that, melting into a look almost of sympathy, and she opened her mouth to say something, but Charmcaster just kept on talking over her. "Whatever, you do what you want. It's not like any of it matters anyway, it'll all undo itself or just be another alternate universe I never go back to or however the hell it works. I don't care anymore," she said matter-of-factly. "I don't. None of this matters." Her eyes raked the table again and settled on Ben. He didn't know what to do, so he just sat there looking solemn. She was digging her own grave and there wasn't anything he could do about that, was there? "None of this matters," she repeated, eyes practically boring into his own. Then she turned and walked off, leaving most of her food on the table uneaten and unwanted. Two-thirds of a hamburger steak, a pile of peppery fries, and a vaguely Asian version of coleslaw abandoned, along with any notions of friendship or family or affection.

"What the hell's wrong with her?" Kevin asked no one particularly, and for once Grampa was himself too mystified to berate Kevin for the language. "Crazy bitch _belongs_ in jail, if y'ask me. And believe me, I know what kinda people need to be in jail."

"Well, that worked out better than I'd hoped," Gwendolyn said mildly, starting to mop up the spilled drinks with napkins. "Sorry about the table, guys."

Ben heard four other voices demanding Gwendolyn to explain what the heck she meant by _that_ statement, but he just looked at her very, very firmly. The 'spill it, NOW, or I'm going to devolve into my bratty ten year-old self and do something awful to you' look, as he thought of it.

She seemed to interpret it correctly. "I threw a minor enchantment on the radio to get that song to play. I tried to get something that would push her buttons to distract her. I didn't expect they'd be pushed quite _that_ hard; she's acting almost like a traumatized war vet or something. But, it worked."

"You upset Charmcaster on purpose, Gwendolyn?" Grampa sounded almost betrayed. "After she's had such a hard life and is trying to get past it, you just go ahead and push her into mental instability? You'd better have a very good explanation for this, young lady, because right now I am _very _unhappy with you."

"Me and Ben have a lot to tell you, Grampa," Gwendolyn replied levelly, unmoved. "All you guys," she added, looking around the table. She held a small thin plastic object up in her hand, and the right side of her mouth quirked upwards wryly. "Apparently, it all starts and begins with this, though. This little sucker I telekinetically lifted out of Charmcaster's pouch while she was busy throwing a tantrum."

Ten year-old Ben leaned over the table to stare within an inch of the object, frowning. "I don't get it. What's the big deal about a Winnie the Pooh cassette tape? No one even uses cassette tapes anymore!"


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

After all the effort explaining things to everyone, and arguing over the veracity of magic alternate universe Gwendolyn's tape, and arguing over what to do with _Charmcaster's_ tape, and figuring out a gameplan for dealing with Charmcaster that was tolerable to all six diverse personalities in the bunch, Ben was tired beyond tired. He was weary enough to go to sleep for a week. But there was no point in pretending everything was normal anymore. There wasn't anything for it but to cart the poor psycho witch back to jail again. The curse? Well, Charmcaster not having access to most of her powers was nothing but a good thing for the rest of society. And if there were any negative side effects, they wouldn't act too rapidly, and almost certainly wouldn't be fatal. If worst came to worst and the spell had to be removed to keep Charmcaster from dying or suffering something equally terrible like brain damage, Gwendolyn was confident that she could at least mitigate the spell enough to make it tolerable for Charmcaster to not be constantly hanging around her would-be victims, with enough work. So they had a plan for dealing with Charmcaster now. No more playing guest with the Tennysons, so sorry, time for the boot.

Except they couldn't _find_ her.

She couldn't have gone _too_ far, because of the curse, so no one was worried that they wouldn't find her. They were just a little worried that she might do something crazy in the meantime. So, because they were all pretty sure they could handle her one on one now that they were ready for her to do something randomly hostile and evil, they all split up. Traditionally the wrong thing to do in horror movies, sure, but they weren't in a horror movie, and it was the best way to minimize potential civilian casualties. Younger Ben could cover a ridiculous amount of ground as XLR8, and called dibs on the highways for obvious reasons. Grampa and the Gwens moved at a much slower pace, but were enhanncing their search with scrying spells and levitation. That left himself and Kevin to pld through the local suburbs and try to look normal. Which wasn't hard, except they were getting twitchy. It'd been a long time before they'd had to look this long and this hard for a fight. Normally the fights came to them with a vengeance. Their vigilante routine was thrown off.

It started getting dark. Their feet got sore. They started to pass the time by arguing with each other about whether Charmcaster was evil, crazy, or crazy-evil. One time Ben nearly fell twenty feet and broke his neck almost walking into one of a series of scattered elevation changes bolstered up by painted wood and steel frames in the mountainy town's geography. The whole thing had an air of unreality to it, as though the girl they were trying to hunt down now wasn't the same person Ben had been making out with on and off for the past few weeks. More than anything Ben just wanted to treat the recent past like a bad dream and think of Charmcaster as a one-dimensional bad guy again. A villain with a black hat who tied people onto railroad tracks. She'd never seemed so much like an actual person before now. Even if everything she said _was_ a lie, it didn't mean the lies were meaningless. It meant Ben had to feel sad that she hadn't taken a different path in life, since she'd proved she could be normal when really wanted to. Or at least fake normal. And wasn't that just about the same thing? Weren't they all a little crazy-evil on the inside, when it came down to it? He couldn't forget those tiny moments of dread and paranoia when he'd wondered, really wondered if he'd have to kill her. Moments like that. Heroes didn't do that kind of stuff. But maybe there was a villain inside of him, never getting a chance to get off its leash, just like maybe there was a hero inside Charmcaster that never got a breath of fresh air. The outside was what was important, what they did from day to day to really change the things around them and make the world better... or worse. And maybe, in the end, it was better this way. Back to the same old, same old. He was the good guy, Charmcaster was the bad guy, and there wasn't any confusion or doubt or paranoia anymore. There was nothing else left to say.

And right after thinking that thought, he saw Charmcaster staring at them from across the street, dishevelled and tense. And he opened his mouth, wanting to say something. To say a thousand things. Even though there was nothing left to say, he wanted to say something. But nothing came. They just stared at each other, silent, accusing.

Good old Kevin broke it up. "Hey! We been lookin' all over for you, you sneaky witch. Get tired of hiding in cardboard boxes?"

She walked forward with very even, deliberate steps, hands behind her back. It would have made her look cute ordinarily, but in this situation it just made Ben tense up.

"She could have a gun or something," he murmured warningly to Kevin, and he nodded in grudging caution, grimacing.

She came to a stop about ten feet away and held her position as if she was a soldier at attention. "Tired?" she asked mildly with a faint smirk.

"Not too tired to handle you, if it comes to that. What's behind your back, Charmcaster?" Ben asked her sternly.

The smirk broadened a little before disappearing entirely. "If I wanted you to know that, would I have my hands behind my back?" As she spoke, he noticed her muscles were twitching along one side from shoulder to waist, and her coat was a little singed, smoking faintly.

"Grampa zap you with a Plumber gun?"

"Nothing you need to worry about, Benny."

"Okay, fine, you've had your little tension moment, let's get to the butt-kicking already." Kevin, typically impatient for violence, smacked a wall and went stone, cracking his knuckles. "Easy way or the hard way, blah blah mercy blah blah could've had a better life blah blah justice. Now come on, I've been waiting to smack you silly ever since I first met you."

She rolled her eyes. "Please, a flea-bitten stray like you isn't worth wasting my time on. I'll make it easy for all of us. I'd be happy to surrender to whatever you've got planned for me... if Kevin gets the same treatment."

"What're you talking about, Charmcaster," Ben said tiredly, sighing and wishing this could just be over with without any wiles, tricks, or manipulations. He liked her better when she was trying to blow him up with spells. "Kevin's one of us now. He's one of the good guys."

"So he gets a get out of jail free card 'cause he's your pal? Nice."

"I've paid for all the crap I've done, anyway," Kevin put in grumpily. "Stop tryin' to confuse us."

One white eyebrow quirked. "Really? You've served a sentence with the appropriate government entity for each and every serious crime you've committed?" Kevin's cavemanish 'uhhhh' expression was enough to make her smirk again and keep talking. "Thought so. And what exactly are you planning on doing to me, anyway? Let me guess, you're going to toss me in jail and hope that the curse doesn't off me. But even if it does, I'm sure you wouldn't cry too much. Right?"

"Are you actually trying to get me to feel sorry for you?!"

"Jesus freaking Christ, is this a fight or a soap opera?!" Kevin complained. "Let's get this over with already!"

"Wait!" Ben called out desperately as he saw Charmcaster tensing up in preparation. "Wait a second. Just... wait. Charmcaster, before we do this. I want you to say it. I want you to tell me..."

"Tell you what?"

"...you know..."

"Alright. Fine." She let out a breath slowly. "So you want the full confession by rote? That's how we're doing it? Fine. Sure, I killed you a few times over. Younger and older versions, whenever convenient. And your cousin, too. And your precious grampa. And well, gosh, I never got the chance to kill Kevy, but believe me, if the chance ever popped up, I definitely would've gone for it!" she said with artificial perkiness. "I killed you guys over and over again, and every time something went wrong, so I did a little rewind back to the start to try again. Only things're getting complicated now. I never expected it to get _this_ annoying." Charmcaster let out a barking laugh, short and sharp and bitter and totally without humor.

Now that it was actually said, Ben felt strangely calm. As if everything was happening to someone else and he was just here to watch the crazy girl he'd gotten so fond of complete her self-destruction. Maybe that was all the universe expected of him at this point; not to be a hero, but just to be an audience or a witness to how truly sad and pathetic Charmcaster had become.

"You twisted psycho." Righteous outrage from Kevin's mouth was pretty surreal to hear. "Haven't you got anything better to do with your sad excuse of a life? Who the hell do you think you are?"

Charmcaster stilled, becoming almost statue-esque, and then burst into hysterical laughter, as bad as the laughing fit back at the hotel room had been. "I don't know anymore," she wheezed with effort after the laughter, collapsing into giggles that sounded not too distant from sobs.

Ben and Kevin exchanged glances. If they were going to take her down, now seemed like a good time. Kevin nodded, and Ben took a step forward...

And then Charmcaster snapped back to alertness, holding herself stiff as a puppet on painfully-angled strings. Her hands were _still_ behind her back. She licked her lips, looking like nothing so much as a cornered animal, eyes wide. "Careful boys. You might not wanna get too close. You don't know where I've been."

"It's over, Charmcaster," Ben told her gently, trying to talk her down into some semblance of rationality. "You're done. Okay? It's done. There's just one last thing I wanna know before we get on with this."

"What?" Eyes turned away from him as though she couldn't stand to return his gaze, now she was a child instead of an animal. A little bratty child who was sulking and about to get dragged out of the store for misbehavior. Young and immature or wild and impulsive or cold and calculating... he wondered which of them was the real Charmcaster. Or even if there _was_ a real Charmcaster, in the end. If she didn't know who she was, how could anyone else know either?

"I wanna know _why_. Why would you do all those horrible things. Why do you hate us so much..."

Her eyes turned back to look at him, and they were sad now. "I don't hate you," she said with a voice that meant she really wanted him to understand that, too. "I don't hate you guys. You're just... you're just in the WAY, don't you GET IT?! Like, like... you know, _Watership Down_. Have you ever read that? British book about rabbits?"

Ben and Kevin shook their heads mutely.

"The burrows the bunnies come from in the beginning are all filled in with dirt and poison and most of them are killed. Only a few make it out. Because the people, they need the land for people stuff, get it? And the bunnies think it's so horrible and wondered why the humans hate 'em so much. But it's not like that at all. The people don't care. People never care about rabbits or other little creatures like that. The bunnies are just... in the way."

"So that's all it is, then?" Ben asked her sadly. It felt like hearing a criminal on trial incriminate herself. "We were just... in the way?"

"Yeah. That's all it is," she said back hoarsely.

"Okay then." He started to walk closer, ready to hit the Omnitrix, hoping she would just give herself up but ready in case she didn't.

"Y'know what the really ironic thing is, I didn't even _do_ anything this time," Charmcaster babbled. "And the time before, I was actually helping you guys out! But it doesn't matter. I still did things _before_ that, and since rewinds don't really... _rewind_... then I'm guilty and that's all that matters. I just wanted to relax for a change! Have a little vacation! I wasn't even gonna kill anyone this time, not really! But no, the past rewinds have to reach up into the present to screw me over. I can't catch a break, not a single time, not a single loop, something _always_ goes wrong!"

Kevin laughed. "If you're expectin' us to give you a hug an' say it's okay 'cause you're not gonna kill us this time, you're even crazier than you look. An' I gotta tell ya, you look pretty crazy right now."

She smiled, a feral teeth-baring kind of smile with no happiness in it. "Oh, I wasn't banking on your forgiveness. I knew it was all over... I knew everything would go wrong, even though I kinda pretended to myself for a while that it wouldn't. But it did, because it always does, and I'm ready for it."

Ben felt a little sorry for her. He did not relish seeing the look on her face when she realized that she didn't have her precious escape route Winnie the Pooh tape anymore. She finally moved her hands where they could see them, but although he was ready to dodge and tackle, it wasn't a gun she was holding in her hands, turning over and over again. It was something round and bulky, hard to tell much of in the dimness of nightfall. It seemed like it was a little wet.

"Had a little run in with the Ben brat," she said with a voice that was almost trance-like, zombified. She turned the object over and over and over, stroking it with her fingertips and thumbs. "Funny thing about him, he's still not sure when he'll time out into normal. I got lucky. So, I dived into the moment. Guess how I got out of it? Guess how?" She grinned a grin that was morbid, absolutely frozen with misery, more of an upwards-pointing grimace than anything else. "When he's timed out, he's just a regular kid, y'know. Hyper, but not really strong or fast or anything. So I just grabbed his arm and... and..." A stuttering giggle went through her, shaking her body.

That was when Ben finally recognized the object as an Omnitrix.

An Omnitrix wet with blood.

His eyes widened in horror and he stood there paralyzed, imagining what had happened.

"You evil bitch," Kevin breathed in a way that was almost admiring.

"It electrocuted me pretty bad, but I'd say it was worth it, wouldn't you? WOULDN'T YOU, YOU FUCKING SUPERHERO PIECE OF SHIT?!" Charmcaster screamed suddenly, slamming the Omnitrix onto her wrist and activating it.

Ben probably would have died right there, crushed beneath the muscular limbs of Charmcaster-Fourarms, except that Kevin got between them and started boxing it out with a vicious relish. Then Ben had enough time to recover, to realize this had to be treated like just another villain of the week no matter how depressing it was, and activated his own Omnitrix. He was pretty sure he could beat her if he kept a level head. It was two against one, and she wasn't experiencing at using Fourarms. Yeah, he could beat her just fine, so long as he didn't keep thinking about how she'd mutilated his younger self...

He chose Big Chill, not out of any tactical decision, but out of a kind of thematic longing for something that would calm him down and freeze his emotions over. Big Chill didn't have to dive headfirst into a pool of adrenaline and come out swinging. Big Chill could avoid anything she threw at him, and freeze her solid in her tracks without even touching her. That was the way it should be.

So he floated around, intangible and invisible, and hovered from one angle to another trying to get a good shot at Charmcaster-Fourarms. She and Kevin were going at it so ferociously that it wasn't an easy thing, though. Only split seconds when they weren't in direct contact, wrestling, strangling, gouging... and split seconds wasn't _quite_ enough time to freeze someone with Fourarms level strength. He heard police sirens wailing hauntingly in the distance, and wondered if someone in one of the nearby cute little beige-roofed houses had called the police. The cops would only get in the way, though, they'd just be extra targets without superhuman durability. This had to get finished up fast.

"Back off and let me get a clear shot in, you idiot," he hissed irritably at Kevin.

Unfortunately, he had to be tangible to do that, and Charmcaster-Fourarms was ready for that. After tense minutes of her duking it out with Kevin, he'd hoped she'd forgotten him, but she noticed him and turned to attack so quickly that he wasn't ready. He managed to phase out through the quadruple-blow, but was slow enough that one of the fists grazed his leg first. And a grazing hit by Fourarms was still strong enough that he felt things inside that leg... he wasn't sure if Big Chill technically had bones or not... snap and crumple up. The only saving grace of the moment was that he had enough sense and pride left to go intangible and float a few feet underneath the street for good measure so no one would hear or see him writhing in agony and swearing like a, well, like a Charmcaster or Kevin. Lesson learned, he took a moment to recover and then floated himself a good distance away from Charmcaster, far enough that he could react to avoid another attack, but close enough that he'd still be able to contribute. Even with a bum leg he still had freezing powers, and dang it, he still felt just sorry enough for Charmcaster to want to take her down himself instead of letting Kevin do the job.

Better yet, he _did_ have one more thing to say, after all. Maybe he could talk her down if she knew there was no way out for her this time. It was possible she hadn't figured out her tape was missing. It all depended on how often she checked the pouch, and she'd been busy enough that it could have slipped her mind. He hadn't noticed it before in the dark, but the road they were on ended abruptly on another one of those little bulwarked elevation dips that were all over the place, with signs and a railing. He leaned against the railing gratefully and went back to normal so he could dig Charmcaster's tape out of his pocket. Waving it in the air, he called out to her.

"Yo! You notice this was missing yet? If you don't give up, I'm gonna break it like you broke my leg just now! Not exactly a fair trade, but I'm feeling merciful today!" The police sirens were screaming now, louder and louder, an ominous background music to his attempt at peacemaking.

She turned towards him quick as a whip, leaving her back vulnerable to Kevin... who was, for a change, chivalrous enough to not take advantage of it. "No! _DON'T_!" Even now, even knowing that the tape was her special escape route, the sheer level of panic in her voice was surprising. She sounded like he was threatening to cut her throat or something.

He started squeezing it in his hand, a finger on each end and his thumb in the middle, causing it to bend slightly. "Give up, Charmcaster. I mean it. Kevin's a bit of a jerk but that doesn't mean I'm gonna let you hurt him like you hurt me just now."

"Please!" She was outright begging, now, hands almost clasped. "Please, PLEASE don't..."

"Are you giving up?"

She hesitated. "Look, just, just give it to me, and I swear I'll leave you guys alone. I'll go somewhere else, I'll do a rewind and leave you guys alone..."

So did she vanish after a rewind or would there still be a different Charmcaster in her place who didn't remember what the previous one had done? The Gwendolyn tape had never explained all that. Ben decided it didn't matter either way. "I'm not letting you go around and hurt other people in other times and places. No way. You're done. It ends here." He bend the tape harder. A little bit more and it would start cracking.

"You break it and I'll kill you!" she screamed, fists clenched as she took a single momentous step forward. "You think I can't do it?! I've done it before!"

He smirked, not caring if she meant it or not. "Yeah, but the tape'll still be broke. Fair price to pay for keeping the rest of the world safe if you ask me."

Paralyzed by conflicting urges, she stood gaping at him, quivering. Kevin had apparently had enough of being chivalrous, and tackled her from behind, getting her into a crippling hold even a four-armed giant alien couldn't escape easily.

"Hah! Gotcha!"

Charmcaster-Fourarms struggled impotently, swearing and snarling, as Ben watched with a vague feeling of depression washing over him. Things shouldn't have to be this way, but Charmcaster was who she was. Just another criminal to put in jail because she couldn't play nice on the outside.

"You chose for things to be like this," he told her pityingly as she finally stopped fighting and just hung there limply, barely standing, breaths coming in pants. She had no snappy comeback for him. "Why do you even want this stupid thing back? Look at what it's done to you. Look what it's made you do. You're obviously still failing at being a bad guy, and you're failing at being a regular person, too. Why do you wanna rewind again? If rewinding didn't make you happy the first kajillion times, why would it be any different now?" He shook his head mournfully. "You're better off without it." And with that, he calmly tossed the tape over the side of the railing.

"NO!" she shrieked, and in the urgency of her desperation somehow found the strength to surge forward and break out of Kevin's hold, clearing the space between herself and the railing almost instantly and jumping the railing after her precious magic tape.

Ben had long held the irrational but practically factually-supported belief that the Omnitrix had a very twisted and cruel sense of humor. This was yet another one of those times when that belief would be backed up, as Charmcaster timed out into her normal self while in midair and falling. She fell without a scream, without a sound, hands outstretched as if she could catch up to the tape in defiance of gravity and snatch it out of the air.

Horrified, Ben stared blankly at the depths of the cliff. There was really no way to tell how far down it was. Kevin joined him, leaning over with an expression of morbid amusement.

"Well, _that's_ over with," he muttered with a black chuckle. "Haven't heard her hit the bottom by yet, so there's no freaking way she could live through it. Might wanna go down there with a flashlight an' poke her corpse a bit though, just to be sure. Or I could jump down, I guess. Might squash her but it's not like anyone cares."

The sound of sirens was almost all there was in the world, now, modern banshee wails spreading news of death and dismay. "You're an asshole, Kevin," Ben mumbled, suddenly very tired.

Kevin was typically unconcerned. "Yeah? S'what's yer point?"

Distinctive black and white cars drove nearby and parked. Red and blue lights flared. Well, at least the cops hadn't arrived so soon as to get caught in the crossfire. Still, there was gonna be a lot of explaining to do. Ben sighed and shifted his weight on the rail, wincing as his leg complained. Maybe it was only a _little_ broken. It didn't seem like it was sticking out at a weird angle or anything, that was good, right?

To his shock, what got out of the cars were not police officers, but more Charmcasters. The purple coats and white hair were all fairly easy to see at this range even in the dark.

They were all smiling, but not nice smiles.

They were all carrying guns.

Probably, the remaining rational part of Ben's mind figured, guns stolen from police officers. There were exactly five of them, five Charmcasters out of three cars, and Ben wondered if this was that identical twin gang that had been on the news. The Gwendolyn tape had warned about doppelganger Charmcasters, but he hadn't really _believed_ it... not until now. Seeing was very definitely believing.

"_It's the eeeend of the world as we know iiiit,_" the one in front sang cheerily.

_"...and I feel fiiiiiiiine,_" they all chorused together.

Five guns raised and aimed.

Kevin was fine, being in stone form and all. But Ben? Well, he had a bad leg, and a tired out Omnitrix that didn't want to activate for him again so soon after last time.

He watched Kevin charge and start taking them out, but by then his own body was already riddled with plenty of bullets. It wasn't painful, exactly, which seemed weird. He would've thought being shot that many times would hurt really bad. Oh well, thank God for physical shock?

Darkness licked away at the fringes of his consciousness, and eventually ate everything up. And it wasn't nearly as bad as he'd thought it would have been.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

After that rewind, nothing was ever really the same again for Charmcaster. Bad luck seemed to follow her like a vengeful ghost. When her would-be victims didn't remember outright, they just somehow _knew_; it took her four loops more before she figured out what had happened. It started with a tape, and it was ending with a tape, and she could appreciate the thematic appropriateness of it. Gwendolyn's vengeance trailed along after her, a recorded message of damning revelations that clung with lamprey-like fervor and sucked the lifeblood out of every little thing she tried to do. Ben _always_ got to it before she saw it, sometimes the older one, sometimes the younger. She had no magic to break the spell that kept the tape travelling along with her, even destroying it didn't make a difference. If she did a rewind, it was right there with her, waiting to be found and listened to. The times she ended up in universes with multiples of herself were even worse, as Gwendolyn's tape started multiplying too. And those times were coming more and more often. Arriving in the middle of a small army of clones stopped being the exception and started being the norm. More often, she popped into the middle of a fight involving aliens or superheroes or the police and came close to dying right there. Her only luck, her _only_ luck was that she managed to survive by the skin of her teeth each time... to rewind onward to an ever more chaotic and maddening new reality. She never died again, never figured out how she'd survived that one time she _did_ die, but it got to the point where she wondered if maybe dying would actually be better. Better than failing constantly. If death would actually stick instead of just catapulting her into the next universe. She wasn't nearly desperate enough to try, though. She still had her pride!

Pride was the only thing Charmcaster had left eventually, and no one was more aware of that than her. Failure after failure, no matter how she planned or schemed or tried her hardest. A thousand opportunities to kill off the Tennysons, a thousand wasted chances. Each rewind multiplied the targets, and each time she failed. If the Tennysons didn't screw her up, it was Kevin. If not Kevin, then that huge green alien with the tentacles, or some other random yahoo sucked into the scenario at random. If not any of them, then the police. If not the police, well, there were always plenty of sneaking backstabbing Charmcasters to ruin her day.

It was the other Charmcasters that were the part she really decided she hated. Not just found inconvenient or got annoyed at or wished they'd _die_ already, but really, seriously hated. She hated them simply because their multitude of actions and behaviors forced her to think about herself in ways she never ever wanted to do. To fight against them, she had to ask herself what she would be thinking and feeling in their situations. And she didn't like that at all. Not one bit. Not when their situations ran the whole freaking gamut from 'I'm a psycho with an axe, hahah!' to 'I want to befriend the Tennysons and help everyone get along!' Telling herself over and over that they weren't _her_ didn't work, not when they had just as good evidence as she did to prove that they were the original who'd started the whole mess. If there even was such a thing as an original. The whole concept of who or what had started it was quickly becoming irrelevant. It just was, a great swirling morass of complicated details that worked together to push her into the dust. They were all aspects of her, even the parts she didn't want to admit to. Especially the parts she didn't want to admit to.

The Coalition wasn't the only organized faction anymore. Some of the Charmcasters formed a rival gang calling themselves World's End. They figured that there was no way to resolve this whole mess, so they might as well just drive everything further into chaos and revel in the pointlessness of it. Then those two main groups splintered and the splinters splintered, until Charmcaster had to worry about any given double being, not just a double agent, but a quadruple agent or worse. She went along with whoever seemed most likely to kill her at the time, which kept her safe. Mostly. There were a few close calls. But there were always close calls, no matter how cautious she was. And at this point, she realized that no amount of caution could keep her truly absolutely secure. Like covering herself with her arms during a hailstorm, there was only so much she could do. The enemies were too many. The lies, the multiple fronts, the fighting. All too much for one poor depowered witch to deal with.

There was no more casual befriending of the Tennysons. Or anyone else. No, Gwendolyn's message on tape saw to it that Charmcaster was on the run all the time, except when she was with other Charmcasters. And even then she could hardly trust her fellows. Just the ability to _relax_ became something imaginary, a far off dream of the past she could never go back to. She'd wanted the Omnitrix and all the rest of the power she could get her hands on because she wanted to be able to do whatever she wanted without any worries, but now she found herself always doing only what was necessary to survive, like a hunted animal, and she was worried constantly.

She didn't _want_ to keep rewinding, it only made things worse, but she didn't know what else to do! There wasn't any other way to fix things except to rewind and hope that the next time would go better. But it never went better, and while the rewinds made the stress on her body not so bad, the strain on her mind was unbearable. Once, in the heat of the moment, she even threw away her pride, the absolutely only thing she had left to cling to, and surrendered to Ben, begging for mercy. That universe's Ben had tried to kill her anyway, and after that she never surrendered to anyone unless there was no other way out of a corner. Life was no longer a game nor even a power struggle, but a chase along a labyrinth with electrocuting walls and a minotaur charging right behind. To stop and think about it all, to really think about everything she'd gone to, would have broken her. So she didn't think. She didn't stop. She just kept on surviving and doing whatever she had to, and even if it never made anything better, at least she was alive to rewind, again and again. She would say whatever anyone wanted to hear, and wait for a chance to run away or kill them. Because everyone was the enemy, now. Everyone.

She acquired a severe phobia of mirrors, especially when it was dark. Whenever she moved around and saw one out of the corner of her eye, she thought it was a doppelganger and became terrified for an instant before she realized what it was and forced herself to calm down. Not relax. She could never relax anymore. But she could be calm. She could be in control. What else was there left to be, if not dead or crazy?

The first time she killed another Charmcaster, it was an accident. She felt horrible about it and had nightmares for a few days afterwards. The second time was on purpose, and she almost enjoyed bashing the girl's brains in. Killing yourself without actually killing yourself was amusingly cathartic. After that, any remaining restraints or rules of courtesy or respect for her fellow Charmcasters just evaporated away. There wasn't any point to it anymore. If she got soft, she'd lose. She didn't want to lose. Every rewind she thought to herself that it couldn't possibly get worse, but it did, and the worse it got, the worse she had to stick with the game. That younger her so long ago that had been horrified and disbelieving at the thought of one Charmcaster torturing another Charmcaster to death seemed pathetically naive now. As the path for survival squeezed tighter and tighter, narrow and razor-sharp, her remaining qualms and squeamishness were torn away, unneeded baggage she could no longer afford to keep with her.

Why couldn't she ever WIN?

It wasn't fair!

Except maybe, maybe, a little voice whispered in the back of her mind, maybe it WAS fair.

Charmcaster had never in her whole life given a damn about other people. Why should the universe or whatever sadistic gods controlled it give a damn about her? Having put herself in a situation where she was free to merrily do whatever she wanted to the point of self-destruction, was it really anything other than poetic justice that she was now unable to do anything _but_ self-destruct?

And she realized, bitterly and without the slightest bit of joy or relief or satisfaction at the revelation, that this was, in the end, all her fault. It was all her, every last bit of it. Everything went wrong because things could never go right, not the way she was living, not while she continued to be who she was. It'd been ignorable before the whole rewind plan had started because she hadn't really dove in headfirst with her whole philosophy of self-fulfillment. There'd been plenty of reasons to restrain herself, even if restraint only meant as little as not becoming a predatory killer constantly on the run from everyone that wasn't her. Gwendolyn's sabotaging tape was actually redundant. Charmcaster took her own personal hell with her wherever she went, and no matter what happened, it never turned out right.

She had literally dug her own grave, and now it was time to lie down in it.

Under the gloomy grip of such an epiphany, Charmcaster could barely muster the energy to struggle anymore. But the fear of death was just still a little bit stronger than the fear of whatever the next rewind held, so she kept on going. Until one day a rewind brought her to something that seemed like heaven compared to what she'd become accustomed to. There were birds, and trees, and no one was around. No one was trying to kill her. No one was yelling at her or ordering her around. She was in the middle of nowhere, with no one to judge her except for the apathetic black shiny eyes of squirrels. An ant scampered over her foot and then off, intent on some personal task only its anty brain knew.

In its quiet simplicity, the scene was so beautiful that Charmcaster almost cried.

Still, she kept tense and alert, waiting, watching. There could be a trap. It could all be a setup. At any moment someone would come barreling through those trees and try to kill or arrest her. But as moment after moment ticked by, she was forced to acknowledge that nothing was going to happen. Probably.

At her feet were some very familiar old artifacts, containers of mystic energy that she'd put to good... or, well, at least powerful... use at one time. And, of course, there was the tape. The Winnie the Pooh tape, waiting to be used. Looking as harmless and inoffensively tantalizing as the apple of knowledge in Eden. One hand flew down to her pouch immediately, tracing the outline of the tape she carried with her... it was still there. The rewind had brought her back to the very start again, before she'd even cast any of the spells. The only difference was she had a second already functioning tape this time.

The new possibilities jumped into Charmcaster's mind and filled her with a painfully strong, desperate sense of hope. Maybe this would do it. Maybe this would make a difference. If she destroyed the old tape, and used the new one, maybe that would refresh all the magic reality hopping gunk so she wouldn't be immediately doomed to jump into horrible messes. Maybe she could have a few more tries at relatively normal universes and actually win for a change. Just like it had been at first, before things got too screwed up. Or possibly even keep both tapes, have a real advantage over everyone else, and use _that_ to win somehow. It couldn't be likely for this to happen very often, since this was the first time it had ever happened to her after so long and she'd never heard of another Charmcaster having multiple tapes that were really hers instead of stolen from duplicates. Either way it was another chance. Another rewind waiting temptingly on the horizon, all hopes renewed and daring her to take the chance. Maybe there was hope for her after all. Hope for her to stay the same person she'd always been, and still win. To beat them all and _prove_ she was better. That she was still herself. That nothing in the universe, in _any_ universe, could ever make her be anything other than who she was.

That was what she wanted, wasn't it?

Wasn't it?

Hands trembling, she took out her old tape and put it side by side with the new one in a gesture of almost religious reverence. She let her fingertips brush over the artifacts, the reagents that would crumple to dust once the power in them was used.

What _did_ she want?

She had to ask herself that, and she knew with a sinking feeling that in asking it she'd answered. The fact that she'd even thought to ask in the first place meant that something had changed. There was no getting around it. Nothing to do but face it.

She wanted the older Ben to hold her and kiss her again and say those cute dorky sentimental lines that gave her an excuse to tease him. She also wanted to kill him, to really just scream and hit him and stab him and burn him and laugh maniacally over his mutilated corpse. And she wanted to laugh and chatter the days away with the Gwens acting like normal girls together, and she also wanted to strangle them until their self-righteous faces went blue. She wanted to mock their grandfather's cooking right before sitting down to a huge helping of it, and she wanted to watch the two brats fight each other like territorial squabbling cats. She wanted to embarrass Kevin over Gwendolyn and get him to mumble something sour and walk away before his pride got hurt, and she wanted to slit his throat and smile sweetly while he choked on his own blood. She wanted to see the other Charmcasters again, and beg them for forgiveness, and tell them everything would be okay, and give them all hugs. She wanted to kill every Charmcaster she saw and make a mountain with their corpses as a warning to anyone who dared mess with her. She wanted to find her uncle and plead with him for help to fix everything, and plead for him to hold still so she could incinerate him properly. She wanted to be the bad girl and the heroine, the yin and the yang, to have her cake and eat it too.

She wanted a thousand things, half of them at odds with the other half, and many of them self-contradictory.

Every rewind, she got part of what she wanted, but never the whole thing. Because she wanted too many things, and she couldn't have them all. Maybe, maybe she couldn't have any of them.

Two squirrels quarreled noisily over a nut as her eyes lingered on the two tapes. All the possibilities in the world. The same as no possibilities at all, because they might give her different places and times and people to deal with, but they didn't really fix _her_.

Even if she _did_ win finally, it wouldn't really be winning, would it? Mirrors would still be scary.

At last, there was nothing else to do but laugh. It wasn't the out of control maddened laughter she started to indulge in once things got too much to deal with, but a restrained, sad kind of laughter. The kind of laugh you'd laugh when a slightly retarded child did something that was very stupid but also a little cute in its total cluelessness. The squirrels were startled at the sound, and scampered up to hide in the higher branches. A bird somewhere fluttered its wings in an emphatic kind of way, as if to say, _hurry up and do it already_.

Smiling the faintest and gentlest of smiles, Charmcaster gripped both tapes firmly in her hands. She gripped them the way she'd remembered Ben doing that one time he'd threatened to break the tape. Thumb in the center, other fingers spread out. She applied pressure until they broke, and to her surprise, she felt nothing at all about it. Thin trails of black spilled out, and she ripped them up into tinier and tinier pieces, shredding them into confetti. Letting the shattered plastic bodies of the tapes fall, she turned her attention to the miscellaneous receptacles of magic energy, stomping the ones that were fragile enough to destroy that way, and forcefully kicking aside the ones that weren't. The mummified skull of an Atlantian thrice-inbred abjured gremlin soared through the air in an arc and plopped neatly into the low hollow of a tree with a soft clunk, and a chipmunk peeked out of the hollow, looking confused.

Charmcaster stood still and straight, and then, for the first time in a long time, she let herself relax, eyes closing, breath softly exhaling. The sounds of little wilderness animals echoed all around her. It occurred to her that she didn't know if the self-inflicted curse that locked her magic and tied her to the Tennysons was still active, or if this universe really was totally the same as the one she remembered, and she realized that she simply didn't care.

"Fast forward," she mumbled to herself, letting out another laugh. Almost a happy one.

She walked off in a random direction, feet dragging over grass and soil as though she'd just run a marathon, eyes sliding over everything without interpreting what they saw or bothering to figure out where she was going.

God, she was so tired.

_"We are what we repeatedly do."_

_-Aristotle_


End file.
